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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26755273">Starting from Zero</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis'>Dira Sudis (dsudis)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Everyone Is Poly Because Jaskier, First Friendship with a Human, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Implied/Referenced Animal Death, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Knitting, Lack of Social Skills, Misunderstandings, Multi, Neurodivergent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Polyamory, Roach Is Dead Long Live Roach, Skincare, Slow Burn, So Slow We Don't Actually Get There In This Story, Talking, eventually, everyone is poly because witchers, he just doesn't understand them, learning experiences, raised by wolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:22:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,364</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26755273</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier called him <em>my friend</em>, which Geralt thought he had probably said before, but it didn't sound like a hollow turn of phrase today. It sounded like Jaskier might actually mean that literally.</p><p>That couldn't be right, but Geralt wasn't about to <em>ask</em> Jaskier whether he meant any of that.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia &amp; Jaskier | Dandelion, Minor or Background Relationship(s), pre-Geralt z Rivii| Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>373</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Our Favorites</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I wrote <a href="https://dsudis.tumblr.com/post/618107445417492480/we-were-actually-discussing-this-in-a-discord-im">this tumblr post</a> back in May, which included this defense of Netflix Geralt and his relationship with Jaskier:<br/></p><blockquote>
  <p>Jaskier, poor bastard, precedes literally all of [Geralt's character growth and relationship experience in the novels]. He’s there before Ciri and before Yen. He is the first non-witcher to probably ever attempt any kind of ongoing friendship with Geralt. Geralt has no fucking clue how to do that or even why he would want to. So Jaskier gets all the rough edges of someone with eighty years of defensiveness built up and exactly zero years of doing anything resembling voluntarily socializing with humans. He’s Geralt’s First Relationship Of Any Kind Ever with a non-witcher, and I don’t know about you but my first attempt at a real close friendship sure didn’t go that smoothly, and even as a neurodivergent fourteen-year-old I was a lot less raised by wolves than Geralt is at eighty.</p>
</blockquote>...and along came this ... fic. In which I could not quite get Geralt and Jaskier all the way to a romantic relationship that they both know is happening, because: starting from zero.<p>Many thanks to Hobbit for beta and for putting up with my whining about where the story actually ends and what belongs in another story entirely, and to everyone else who has been encouraging this for months!</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><strong>Warning:</strong> This chapter includes the offscreen death of (a) Roach. Geralt alludes to what happened, which was upsetting, and is upset, but there is no graphic description.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been about three years since Jaskier first approached him in the tavern in Posada--long enough that Geralt couldn't say exactly how many contracts Jaskier had tagged along on without a few minutes of counting up--when Jaskier said something even stranger than his usual line of nonsense.</p><p>They were walking back toward the little town where Geralt had picked up his latest contract and Jaskier intended to earn some coin playing, when a phrase leapt out of the stream of words like a fish. <em>The pleasure of your company, my friend.</em></p><p>Geralt didn't react to it at all, and in fact had no idea what had come before or after in Jaskier's monologue, because he was so busy trying to work out what that had meant.</p><p>Nobles would sometimes request <em>the pleasure of your company</em> in a way that was not a request and also had nothing to do with pleasure or companionship. But Jaskier... and he had said <em>my friend</em>, as well, which Geralt thought he had probably said before, but it didn't sound like a hollow turn of phrase today. It sounded like Jaskier might actually mean that literally.</p><p>That couldn't be right, but Geralt wasn't about to <em>ask</em> Jaskier whether he meant any of that. Or meant whatever a person might possibly mean by it, when they were a human and Geralt was... Geralt. No one would really call him their friend and mean what they meant when they used that word for another human.</p><p>Geralt had friends among the witchers, of course. Not that he would describe any of them that way, except Eskel, and Eskel didn't need him to say <em>my friend</em> to know it. That was just what Eskel's name meant, coming from Geralt's mouth, after knowing each other practically their entire lives.</p><p>Eskel aside, Geralt was friendly with pretty much all the witchers he knew who were left alive, as witchers would account friendliness. From time to time over the years, when Geralt and another witcher happened to meet, one of them might offer a reason to travel a while together. It might be a particularly nasty job he'd heard about that would be easier for two, or a rare potion ingredient growing in an odd spot he knew nearby, or just that the nights had gotten so cold lately and it would be nice to share bedrolls for a while.</p><p>That was never the real reason, of course. It was just what they said, and no matter how flimsy the excuse no one ever questioned it, not even if they had to say no and point him in the direction of another witcher. Because of course that wasn't really why. Really, it was because the one asking couldn't sleep without a bedmate lately, or was having a stretch where he needed to be reminded to eat at least once a day, or couldn't manage to meditate without following the cadence of someone else's breathing, or he'd been having a run of bad luck and needed to shake it, or he wanted to fuck.   </p><p>That was simple enough. That made sense. Witchers did that for each other, at least for other witchers they liked well enough not to leave them in the cold when some kind of trouble got its teeth into them. There was the thing you said, and then there was the thing you did, and once the real need was sorted out, they'd split up again and go their separate ways. </p><p>Witchers were, fundamentally, solitary creatures. Alone was just how they were supposed to be. </p><p>It was probably why Geralt hadn't ever put any real effort into dissuading Jaskier from coming along--it was a habit after all these years on the Path, not being an asshole about it when someone needed to pair up for a while. Jaskier had given his reasons for wanting to join Geralt: he wanted material for songs, wanted adventure stories and somehow thought a witcher's work qualified, even after he'd seen half a dozen hunts and knew it was just <em>work</em>.</p><p>Jaskier had never indicated that there was anything else to it. He never seemed to be in any trouble, even when he mentioned that he'd earned someone's ire due to his reckless choices in bed partners and ought to leave town for a while. That had only been a few times, anyway. What Jaskier was always talking about, when he came along, was the stories he would spin, the songs he would write. He <em>did</em> write songs; Geralt heard him sing them often enough, and had even heard other people sing a few of them. </p><p>He never seemed to want anything else that Geralt could put his finger on. They shared a bed when that was the practical thing to do, but Jaskier didn't seem to care one way or another, sleeping just as well apart as together. He hadn't given any sign of wanting to fuck Geralt himself, personally, any more than he wanted to fuck all the time in general. He had definitely never tried to make it happen, and Geralt knew he wouldn't have missed that--Jaskier was never shy about propositioning the people he wanted to go to bed with, and he went to bed with plenty of them. When he did spend a night with Geralt, he had no nightmares Geralt could detect; he ate and drank cheerfully, and didn't need to meditate. He helped with what little things he could do, he mostly followed directions, and he talked incessantly--and then after a few days or weeks he just... went away again.</p><p>He was in the act of going away again, the day after he'd said the words that had gotten so far into Geralt's head, before Geralt realized that he'd not only never made any attempt to get Jaskier to clarify what he'd said, he had barely spoken three words to him since. He thought he should say something as Jaskier went, but Jaskier was already offering that crooked smile and walking away before Geralt could bring any words to his mouth.</p><p>Well. If Jaskier showed up again, maybe Geralt could figure it out then. And if he didn't, no use puzzling over it. Geralt put it out of his mind.</p>
<hr/><p>The next time Geralt saw Jaskier, a few months later, the whole question of what Jaskier had said and what it meant came back to him, though he hadn't thought of it at all in between. It was like the entry in some bestiary appearing in his mind when he saw a rare creature that he had no reason to contemplate when it wasn't in front of him. <em>Jaskier, bard, human. May think you're his friend, evidence limited and inconclusive.</em></p><p>That was the trouble with unique creatures, just like individual humans--you had to do all the research yourself. There was no set of signs and methods he could memorize for dealing with Jaskier.</p><p>It shouldn't have been hard to simply work it out for himself, but with Jaskier once again before him, smiling and chattering and bright and eager, Geralt couldn't imagine summoning up the words to just <em>ask</em> what he didn't know. If for no other reason than that whatever answer he got would involve <em>so much more talking</em> from Jaskier.</p><p>Still, Jaskier was the very opposite of an elusive quarry. Geralt could simply... observe.</p><p>He didn't realize, until he started deliberately paying attention to Jaskier, how much he normally filtered out when he was in Jaskier's presence. </p><p>Jaskier was <em>loud</em>. </p><p>It wasn't just the talking and singing, although that hardly ever stopped; even when he was doing neither of those he made the little subvocal throat noises that humans couldn't hear but made when reading or trying out words in their heads. Jaskier evidently had words going through his head, and throat, <em>all the time</em>. When Geralt tried to pay more attention to Jaskier he stopped automatically ignoring those little sounds, which he could <em>almost</em> interpret into some kind of meaning, but not quite. But he'd known better than to respond to the noises humans made that the humans themselves couldn't hear since he was younger than Jaskier; he wasn't going to start now.</p><p>Jaskier was loud in other ways, too--his bright clothes, his quick, irregular movements and wild gestures, the human-quick beat of his heart racing at a pace double a witcher's. And he was just... so much <em>person</em>, so intensely <em>there</em>. Geralt had felt less surrounded by humans in crowded cities than he did walking down a lonely road with Jaskier at his side.</p><p>It didn't take long before Geralt had a viciously throbbing headache and was nearly snarling whenever he had to speak to Jaskier. </p><p>Jaskier stopped talking and singing then, and, as if he understood what he'd done, tried to make himself small, his gestures shrinking, his expression smoothing out. </p><p>But the little throat-sounds continued, settling into some repetitive sing-song sort of rhythm, and his heart kept beating fast, and he smelled like stress and maybe fear.</p><p>Geralt stopped walking and took a deep breath, putting it together. Jaskier thought he'd made Geralt angry, and was worried about it. The little repetitive throat-sounds were like the songs people sang to soothe children: Jaskier was trying to calm himself, but it obviously wasn't helping. </p><p>He was worried Geralt would abandon him, maybe, or would shout at him or hit him again--Geralt never had, not since that first time. Once had been enough, though. Once still meant Jaskier knew how it felt to have Geralt strike him, and wouldn't forget that it might happen again. Geralt had pulled the punch that time, but Jaskier couldn't be sure if he'd pull it as much the next time, and Jaskier had seen a lot, since then, of what Geralt's hands could do.</p><p>"I'm not," Geralt said, and heard how harsh the words sounded. He took a few more breaths and tried again, struggling against the weight of Jaskier's obviously riveted attention and the distractingly intense pain in his skull, to make his voice quiet. He tried to say it like he was talking to Roach, only aimed in the other direction. "I'm not angry."</p><p>Jaskier's eyebrows popped up in disbelief, and even Roach gave an ear-twitch that seemed dubious. Geralt sighed and turned away from Jaskier, starting down the road again. It was a little easier to speak without being able to see Jaskier's doubtful face, even if he could still feel Jaskier's focus and hear every little sound Jaskier made.</p><p>"I'm not angry at you," Geralt tried. "I have a headache. It's my own fault."</p><p>"Oh," Jaskier said, sounding startled, but at least not disbelieving, and not scared. "Do you need to take a potion? Or meditate? I could, ah... keep watch?"</p><p>Geralt turned to look at Jaskier again, to find the bard giving him a strangely earnest look, standing straight and wide-eyed. It took a moment for Geralt to recognize the look, and why it made his head hurt worse: it was the way the boys at Kaer Morhen, teenagers in training to become witchers, would look at full-fledged witchers when they offered to help with some chore. They'd always been eager to prove themselves useful.</p><p>There were no boys like that at Kaer Morhen anymore, and Jaskier wasn't quite that young, but... more than young enough, from where Geralt stood. Still, just traveling with Geralt now and then wasn't going to condemn him to the same fate as those long-dead bright-eyed boys, and if Jaskier wanted to be helpful... well, Geralt wasn't accomplishing anything by being in unnecessary pain. He was between contracts and the weather was fine and Roach in good condition, so he was in no particular hurry to get to the next town.</p><p>"All right," Geralt said, glancing around, and led the way off the road to a reasonably sheltered spot. He slipped Roach's bridle off--she might as well have a break for as long as he did, and a little grazing would keep her distracted from trying to bite Jaskier. </p><p>Geralt sat down with his back against a tree. Jaskier, looking around, said, "Should I..."</p><p>"Sit down and be still," Geralt instructed, making an effort not to growl the words. "If you hear anyone coming along the road, tap my shoulder but do not make a sound." </p><p>Ordinary animals would avoid Geralt's scent, and his medallion would alert him to the approach of anything unnatural, so he really only needed Jaskier to watch out for <em>more humans</em>, which was the last thing Geralt needed today. </p><p>Jaskier nodded and sat down a body-width away, and Geralt closed his eyes and searched for the calm emptiness he'd learned to cultivate before he'd learned to read. His senses went unfocused, taking in everything equally, letting it all be just noise, all equally meaningless and irrelevant, just like the endless thoughts and evaluations darting through his mind. Soon he heard only the steady slow beating of his own heart, and his thoughts were a scatter of leaves on the wind while he sat still, at rest.</p><p>When the time Geralt had allotted himself was up, he opened his eyes to the sight of Jaskier. He was sitting straight ahead of Geralt now, instead of off to one side, and he was staring into the bushes that screened them from the road, his fingers twitching through some exercise, strumming an invisible lute.</p><p>Geralt let out a breath of relief as he realized that Jaskier now seemed no louder than he normally did; Geralt had managed to reset his sensory thresholds as well as quelling his headache. </p><p>Jaskier clearly had been putting some attention into listening; he looked toward Geralt as soon as that little sigh escaped, offering him a cautious smile. </p><p>Geralt nodded acknowledgment. "Better now. We should get back on the road."</p><p>Jaskier popped gracefully to his feet, and his voice was light and easy as he said, "Thank you for encouraging me to take care of myself when I didn't feel well, Jaskier. Thank you for keeping watch so I could meditate."</p><p>"You're welcome," Geralt muttered as he got the bridle back on Roach--who would probably have warned him of a problem before Jaskier did, really. It wasn't as if he never meditated without someone to keep watch; if he waited for that he'd go months or years without it.</p><p>Jaskier let out a startled little laugh, bright as a chiming bell, and Geralt couldn't hold back a fraction of a smile when he looked in the bard's direction. They were all right, then. This was all right. Jaskier wasn't worrying about Geralt lashing out at him and Geralt hadn't irretrievably fucked up his senses for no good reason. </p><p>He resolved to take the hint and leave things alone. If it was important to figure out what Jaskier thought of him or what he was getting out of the time he spent with Geralt, it would probably make itself clear eventually. If it didn't come up, then it couldn't be particularly important.</p><p>With that encouraging thought, Geralt led Roach and Jaskier back to the road to resume their journey.</p>
<hr/><p>The question still flitted across his mind from time to time over the next year, but nothing seemed to change. Jaskier still turned up without warning in unexpected places, still attached himself to Geralt with only the barest pretense of asking permission, and was still as sunny and frivolous as ever. He was also still writing songs; he debuted three or four that were identifiably about Geralt over that year, and a few others that Geralt suspected owed something to their travels even if Jaskier had changed all the names and most of the details. </p><p>Jaskier was enjoying some proper success now--he insisted on paying for drinks and meals and rooms more often than he used to, and he had an even easier time getting into people's beds--or up their skirts or into their trousers, depending on how much time they had--than he ever had. That led to a few more instances of Jaskier making enemies, and in general drawing more noisy attention from humans, but there was also a day when someone recognized Jaskier and then worked out who Geralt must be from that, rather than spotting the witcher first. It was a strange feeling, but by no means a bad one.</p><p>It might mean that Jaskier would soon have better things to do than keep following Geralt around, though. Geralt didn't feel any of the relief that thought would have brought him a few years ago. He didn't think about what he did feel about it--that was almost as good as not feeling it at all, most of the time.</p><p>Still, one day when he and Jaskier had stopped to spend the heat of the day fishing with their feet in a stream, instead of pushing on to the next town so Geralt could look for contracts, Geralt found the questions he'd been wondering about bubbling up into his thoughts. It was the best kind of quiet here--a lively quiet composed of flowing water and Jaskier's absent humming and Roach's tail swishing at flies from time to time, and all the little animal sounds that meant that all was well. That kind of quiet left room for words in Geralt's head, and after mulling them over for a while he found a question he could force out of his mouth.</p><p>Jaskier startled a little when Geralt spoke--it was possible that he hadn't moved visibly or made a sound in an hour or two by then. "Are you getting what you need from this? Traveling with me?"</p><p>Jaskier blinked a few times, and then his smile broadened and he looked directly into Geralt's eyes and said, honesty and sincerity blazing sun-bright, "Yes, Geralt. This is working extremely well for me. I wouldn't tag along so much if it didn't, would I?"</p><p>Geralt couldn't argue with that--literally, not a word came to his tongue in the face of that untroubled smile and the truthful ease in Jaskier's posture and scent and heartbeat. When Jaskier started burbling on about his newest songs and the invitations he'd had to play at this and that fancy event, Geralt didn't bother to interrupt him with any more questions. Jaskier was happy, and still wanted to follow Geralt around while he worked. Geralt didn't really need to know anything else.</p>
<hr/><p>It was sunny the next time Geralt encountered Jaskier, too, though it should have been raining. Rain would have been one more misery on his long walk to the tavern, but it would have been more suitable than the high blue sky above him, the sunlight shining through the windows and turning the wood floors to a bright chestnut color. </p><p>Geralt heard Jaskier's voice before he saw him, and downed the last of the bottle of--whatever it was. Vodka, probably. It was no use hoping to be repellant enough to keep Jaskier away, but if Geralt could get out of sight he could put off the inevitable for a while. </p><p>He stood and absolutely did not sway, but still had to stand very still for a moment as he remembered that he didn't have a room to go up to. His pack and the second bag he'd rigged to carry along with it were right there at his feet. He'd had enough money left for either drinks, or food, or a room, and he'd chosen the one that had seemed most vital when he reached the tavern.</p><p>Not his best tactical decision ever, but he hadn't expected <em>Jaskier</em> to turn up in this shithole on this obnoxiously lovely day--though maybe that should have been a hint. A portent of his coming.</p><p>"Geralt!" </p><p>Geralt closed his eyes. He'd missed his chance. </p><p>"I wasn't expecting to see you," Jaskier went on cheerfully, "I walked right past where the horses are tied up and Roach... didn't..."</p><p>Geralt had to open his eyes when Jaskier trailed off, though he did so cautiously, as if he might be looking straight at the sun, because he didn't want to see the look on Jaskier's face. He was saved from that, at least; Jaskier was staring down at Geralt's gear on the floor, which did not at all include saddlebags.</p><p>"I found a healer willing to bother with a horse for enough gold," Geralt heard himself saying, before he'd decided to say anything at all. "Thought she could save her. Tried for--days. But all it bought was more time and... not good time, and it wasn't... she couldn't. I told her yesterday to give up. Paid her everything I had anyway, she--she'd done all the work she could. Even if it didn't..."</p><p>He'd been an idiot, and selfish, wanting to find some way to be able to keep Roach after she'd been hurt like that. He should have ended it cleanly as soon as he saw how bad it was--he'd have saved himself the money and saved Roach all those days of being scared and in pain whenever he wasn't quick enough with another Axii. </p><p>She'd saved his life, that was all. It had only seemed fair, in that first moment after the fight was done, to try to return the favor, and then he couldn't bear to stop and waste the effort and her pain, until he knew there was no chance of succeeding.</p><p>Geralt braced himself as Jaskier raised his head in an oddly slow movement, like he was deliberately giving Geralt warning of incoming eye contact. But when Jaskier was finally looking him in the eye, it wasn't as bad as Geralt would have expected; Jaskier's expression was serious but not... emotional. He had the feeling that Jaskier would have been saying things, feeling things where Geralt couldn't help seeing them, but he was holding it back.</p><p>Geralt felt very dimly grateful for that.</p><p>"That," Jaskier said, enunciating very deliberately as he reached out to clap a hand to Geralt's shoulder, "sounds awful, my friend. Sit down, I'll go get more drinks."</p><p>Geralt stared after him for a few seconds as Jaskier turned away, and then he sat. Jaskier came back with a few more entire bottles of assorted clear liquors, and sat with him until the light outside the window was dimming, talking idly about nothing in particular for what must have been hours, though Geralt didn't feel like he was entirely present for most of it. </p><p>At some point there was food in front of him, and he ate it; a while later, when it was dark outside, Jaskier wasn't sitting across from him anymore, but was over by the hearth, singing a low sad song about a woman warrior. Half the room was crying; Geralt took another swig of rye and felt... oddly in tune with the people around him. It was a surprisingly warm feeling, like a little echo of being home at Kaer Morhen, surrounded by his own kind, and not alone among humans half the continent away.</p><p>Jaskier set out with him afoot the next day, and followed him around for weeks while he completed enough jobs to have a decent amount of gold in his purse to take to the big horse market outside Vizima. As always, Geralt felt bleakly certain he wouldn't find a suitable replacement, but he knew he had to have a horse and there was no point delaying further.</p><p>And then, walking along the fence of one of the little holding paddocks, Jaskier had to dance away from the snapping teeth of a chestnut mare with a white blaze. Geralt felt himself smile a little as he stepped closer to her, and the upward twitch of his mouth felt unfamiliar even though it was automatic.</p><p>Jaskier scoffed as the mare sniffed peaceably at Geralt. "Well, there you go, clearly she's been waiting for you."</p><p>"Hmm," Geralt allowed, running a hand gingerly down her nose as he breathed in the healthy, sturdy scent of her, listening to her easy breathing as she took in his scent in turn. "Maybe so."</p>
<hr/><p>Three days later--two days after saying goodbye to Jaskier, who was off to a string of performances in the city--Geralt said aloud, "<em>My friend</em>."</p><p>His new Roach's ears twitched toward the sound of his voice, as if she understood the significance of the words.</p><p>Jaskier had said that to him, had definitely specifically said that to him, back in the tavern the day they met up. And immediately following those words, he had... brought Geralt drinks, and kept him company, and made sure he ate, and sang those sad songs all night, and...</p><p>He had been kind. He had been <em>thoughtful</em>, to be kind not in the ways he might be to any other human, by rote, but specifically to Geralt. </p><p>"My friend," Geralt said again, feeling a pleasant sort of satisfaction at having that figured out. </p><p>Perhaps when he'd known Jaskier another five years he could say it while Jaskier was somewhere within ten miles of him--but then there wasn't any rush.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It didn't take long for that sunny certainty to start ebbing away. Geralt was still taking every job he could find, pushing hard to rebuild his stores of coin, and every moment not spent traveling or working was spent training Roach on the special skills that would help keep both of them alive as long as possible on the Path. </p>
<p>He fell down exhausted every night, the effort of patient repetition--and liberal use of Axii--having scoured the last of his energy from him. In the gray hazy moments he could spare to think about anything else, it became harder and harder to remember that any of it could have been real: that moment on the road, or that day by the stream, or any other bright point he remembered from the last five years of knowing Jaskier. </p>
<p>Why would he imagine that Jaskier <em>liked</em> traveling with him, let alone liking <em>him</em>? Geralt couldn't imagine anyone liking any of this. He certainly didn't.</p>
<p>For a while, he told himself to trust the conclusions he'd drawn at the time, while the evidence was fresh. Even if it felt impossible now, when he'd just seen Jaskier he'd believed it, and that ought to tip the balance, logically. But as the weeks and then months went by without Jaskier turning up again, even that assurance ebbed away. Still he couldn't help looking, listening, every time he approached another settlement or village or town.</p>
<p>Finally, more than three months since he'd last seen Jaskier, he heard the most welcome sound in the world: a low, gravelly voice he'd know anywhere, patiently and firmly demanding to be paid for services rendered.</p>
<p><em>Eskel</em>.</p>
<p>Geralt homed in on the sound without a thought, with the result that he arrived at Eskel's back abruptly enough to make the alderman arguing with him go suddenly pale. </p>
<p>Eskel, naturally, didn't turn a hair; no matter how long it had been, it would never startle him to have Geralt appear at his back, any more than Eskel's arrival would ever put Geralt off his stride. "Now, as I was saying."</p>
<p>"Y-yes," the alderman said. "Yes, of course. Job well done." He scrabbled hastily in a purse and pulled out a heavy fistful of coins. Geralt saw Eskel weigh them in his palm--any of them could tell how much he was holding just by the feel of it, from long practice at avoiding being cheated without being insultingly obvious about counting in front of the client.</p>
<p>"Thanks," Eskel said, with a shallow nod and a tone in his voice that meant he'd still been shorted a few orens, but not enough to bother quibbling about. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Geralt. "I'll just get this guy out of the way, then."</p>
<p>The alderman looked relieved at that, and then Eskel was turning and Geralt had no attention for anyone or anything else, grabbing him in a fierce hug. "That was the last decent contract in town," Eskel murmured against his cheek. "You need to buy anything?"</p>
<p>Geralt shook his head, and in short order they were back on the road, leaving all those humans behind. Eskel was still riding the dapple gray he'd had the last time Geralt had seen him, a gelding he would call Hornet if anyone asked, though Geralt had only ever heard Eskel address the horse as <em>Honeybee</em>.</p>
<p>Eskel looked Roach over, visibly drawing all the obvious conclusions about why Geralt had changed mounts since they left Kaer Morhen together in the spring and how little he would want to discuss it. He asked, once they were riding side by side down the track, "How's training going?"</p>
<p>"Well enough," Geralt admitted, realizing as he said it that it was true: Roach had been patiently humoring him through all their training sessions for weeks now, and had fully mastered both getting the hell away from anything Geralt was hunting when it came to the fight, and returning promptly to the scene at his whistle, or within the hour even if he didn't summon her, as well as the stand-and-wait and kneeling for him to mount when he couldn't stand. </p>
<p>But it was quiet in camp, when it was just the two of them, so Geralt had carried on practicing with her anyway. </p>
<p>"Could probably use a few pointers, though," Geralt added, taking the offered opening to make the familiar kind of request. "You taught yours any good moves?"</p>
<p>Eskel knew very well that Geralt knew what the horse's real name was, so Geralt wouldn't use the false one, but he wasn't interested in tweaking Eskel over it just now, so he wouldn't use the real one either.</p>
<p>"Mm, he's good in a mounted fight, but that's mostly just time and experience." And an Axii that could have convinced Honeybee he could fly, nevermind getting him to wade into a fight, but Eskel's skill with signs could be taken as read between them. "Still, couldn't hurt to put 'em through their paces, maybe pick up some work so we can see how they do side by side." </p>
<p>Geralt nodded as though that made perfect sense, and also didn't argue when Eskel said he was tired from his string of jobs and wanted to make camp early. They set up in the first reasonable site they came to, got both horses settled for the night without the least pretense of doing any training or evaluation, and settled down together to eat. </p>
<p>There was no need for a fire, so they just dug into their packs to see what they had to make a meal of, swapping for each other's favorites as they went; Geralt wondered what the hell Eskel would have done with all those raspberries, which he hated, if Geralt hadn't turned up, but it would probably have been the same thing Geralt would've done eventually with the pound of dried apricots he'd been carrying around for months. </p>
<p>They ate without talking, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Geralt could feel tension unwinding from every muscle, every cell, as he absorbed Eskel's steady, familiar presence, and he could feel Eskel relaxing along with him. There was no need to speak when all that was really necessary to know could be gleaned just by being close enough to hear and smell and feel and see. </p>
<p>Eskel was healthy, if still sweating out the last of his most recent round of potions, and as glad to be near Geralt as Geralt was to be near him; his pack had held a comfortable variety of palatable foods; his gear and Honeybee's tack were in good repair, though while unpacking food he had taken out a bundle of mending to work on. </p>
<p>That reminded Geralt of the camp-work he'd been neglecting in favor of pretending Roach still needed work, so after they'd been down to the creek to fill waterskins and wash, he sat down again with Eskel and dug into his own pack. Geralt didn't have any mending to do at the moment, but the weather was going to turn colder any time, and his supply of socks was dwindling; at the bottom of his pack was the bag of yarn and needles for making new ones.</p>
<p>There were less than a dozen witchers left to do the spring shearing of the semi-domesticated goats who lived in the environs of Kaer Morhen, but the goats were if anything more numerous than they'd been when Geralt and Eskel were boys. Back then, the supply of yarn for socks and other knitted goods had been strictly portioned out, and woe betide the boy who wore through his socks before the next spring. Some years Geralt's socks had been more darns than original knitting by the time he got his next allotment of wool.</p>
<p>Now... well, there was plenty to go around, and plenty of time in the winter to experiment with formulating new dyes once they'd spun the fibers, so the bag Geralt drew out held a riot of colors in tidy skeins of yarn. He'd finished one sock of the current pair a while back--before he got his new Roach. Before he'd last traveled with Jaskier. </p>
<p>Still, decades of necessity and experience--no one <em>else</em> had knitted him a pair of socks since he was eight years old, except other witchers who he swapped with, which didn't exactly spare him any work--meant that he could pick up where he'd left off with scarcely a look at the two different colors he was working in an improvised decorative pattern. </p>
<p>He leaned back-to-back against Eskel as they had since they were learning these tasks as boys, so they both remembered not to hunch over their work, and could feel each other's breathing warmth. </p>
<p>After a while, Eskel said, "What's that pattern, Wolf?"</p>
<p>Geralt blinked down at what was in his hands: mostly vivid red, a perennial favorite color of the School of the Wolf, dotted with little... yellow...</p>
<p>Buttercups.</p>
<p>Geralt stared at the half-finished sock, feeling absolutely betrayed by the work of his own hands. He didn't know if he'd actually meant to give them to Jaskier--how could he have?--or just to wear them, like--like some <em>token</em> he'd made for himself, but...</p>
<p>He was tempted to light a campfire just to throw them on it, though that would be absurdly dramatic--something Jaskier would do, probably, or at least something he would sing about someone doing--and a waste of perfectly good yarn, to say nothing of the work that had already gone into a three-quarters-finished pair of socks.</p>
<p>Eskel just barely turned his head, and Geralt knew he'd seen the design already; recognized what it meant; connected it with the absence of half-griping stories about Jaskier that Geralt had told in the last several hours--in contrast to the last several times they'd met--and come to a painfully acute understanding.</p>
<p>"Just finished a pair in Wolf School stripes, with that weird black dye we came up with last winter. Haven't even worn them yet," Eskel said. "Swap you?"</p>
<p>The black dye wasn't just weird--it glowed with a fascinating iridescence in Cat-enhanced vision, though it looked perfectly black otherwise. He and Eskel and a few of the others had used up endless doses of Cat potion over the winter perfecting and then admiring it.</p>
<p>"Yeah," Geralt said, after a too-long hesitation. He had some of the special black yarn left; he could slip it into Eskel's pack before they parted ways, to make the swap properly fair, and to thank Eskel for pulling him neatly out of the trap he'd so thoughtlessly set for himself. With <em>buttercups</em>. "Should be finished with these tonight or tomorrow."</p>
<p>Eskel shrugged, rubbing their shoulders together with the motion. "No rush."</p>
<p>After that they didn't speak again, just easing into the presence of each other, falling into the same rhythms they always shared when they were together. Neither of them had to ask what came next; it was already there in the ways they pressed against each other as they worked, the scents rising off each of them as they began to think ahead.</p>
<p>When they'd both finished their work for the night, Eskel tossed his bedroll to Geralt and went to walk a circle around the spot where they would lie. By the time Geralt had combined their blankets to make the most comfortable pallet possible, Eskel had set an Yrden around them that would trap anything trying to intrude, from a gnat to a charging arachas, at its edge. Anything big would be stopped at least long enough for them to notice and grab their swords; anything small would be held out until Eskel's power faded from the sign, which might last for hours if it wasn't heavily challenged.</p>
<p>Geralt grinned at Eskel and started stripping, sure of their safety as if they'd barred a door behind them in one of Kaer Morhen's towers. Eskel did the same, both of them setting down their weapons and clothes in their preferred arrangement to make dressing and arming in a hurry most efficient. They didn't touch each other until everything was laid down in its proper place, Eskel's swords at the top of the bedroll, Geralt's along the right side, boots and clothes in their orderly piles to the left. </p>
<p>The process took long enough that they were both thoroughly ready--bodies heating, hearts speeding, cocks stiff--by the time they fell on each other and the bedroll. Geralt nuzzled at the scar-twisted quirk of Eskel's lip before kissing him properly, and they fell into tasting and breathing each other as they moved together, body to body, cocks sliding between them in a rhythm that had been familiar since they were boys.</p>
<p>Geralt could feel the little tension that meant Eskel was holding back, so he let himself finish. When Eskel twisted away from him to aim his cock off the edge of the pallet, Geralt pressed up against his back and reached around to add his own touch, kissing helpfully at the back of his neck. Eskel climaxed easily then, and Geralt wrinkled his nose against the back of Eskel's neck at the smell of his come, bitter and faintly metallic. It was clearly still a little toxic from the potions he'd taken that morning, or maybe the day before; better spent on the grass and dirt than either of their skins, let alone in Geralt's mouth or ass. </p>
<p>Geralt gave Eskel a last friendly squeeze, drawing a huff and an elbow, before he snuggled in properly and settled his arm over Eskel's waist, ready to sleep. Eskel brushed a thumb over Geralt's knuckles, and hooked one ankle over his, and then everything was just right. Geralt slept easily and deeply.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The second day after he'd met up with Eskel--the morning after he'd finished the damn buttercup socks and slipped them into Eskel's pack, thankfully--they were standing together at a noticeboard, silently considering the available jobs, when Jaskier said, "Geralt?" </p>
<p>Geralt turned sharply--as much because of the slightly odd tone in Jaskier's voice as because it was such a surprise to hear it after so long--and found Jaskier standing there, looking much the same as he ever did, satchel and lute slung on his back. But there was a little frown on his face Geralt had rarely seen, and it was directed at Eskel's back. </p>
<p>"Jaskier," Geralt said, with no idea whether his own voice reflected any oddness. Only then did Eskel turn to look as well, restoring the contact between their shoulders that Geralt had broken when he turned. </p>
<p>"I, ah..." Jaskier continued staring at Eskel like he'd never seen a witcher before. Or as if he'd never seen anyone with a scarred face, but he was looking straight at Eskel, not trying to avoid the sight of his scars as people did if they were disgusted or horrified, so it likely wasn't that. "I was going to ask whether you'd mind me joining you, but I see you already have a traveling companion?"</p>
<p>"Eskel," Geralt said, gesturing to make it an introduction. "My oldest friend. We trained together."</p>
<p>Jaskier blinked at him for a few seconds, then returned his gaze to Eskel with an expression Geralt couldn't read at all. "Eskel! I have heard absolutely nothing about you, ever. My name is Jaskier."</p>
<p>"Yeah, I heard him say that," Eskel said dryly. "You're the one writing all these damn ballads about witchers."</p>
<p>"Well, only about one witcher, so far," Jaskier said, looking back and forth between them now. "Since I've literally never heard Geralt speak of any others, nor met any others myself."</p>
<p>He sounded faintly suspicious, as if Geralt might have deliberately warned all the other witchers to steer well clear of the bard singing all those damn White Wolf songs--as if anyone else would need the warning. </p>
<p>Eskel looked toward Geralt, a little hint of amusement in his eyes, and then back to Jaskier. "Come with us, then. Just don't put <em>my</em> name in any songs. Don't need that kind of attention."</p>
<p>Geralt rolled his eyes and shoved at Eskel with his elbow, and Eskel grinned and slung an arm around him, and Jaskier said, in that way he did when he was trying to be dignified, "I accept those conditions."</p>
<hr/>
<p>They made camp that night after making quick work of two drowners' nests and traveling to the outskirts of another village to dispatch some wraiths. Eskel had been silently laughing at Geralt for hours now--it was all in his eyes and his shoulders--about the way he'd shown off for Jaskier as they fought. Geralt didn't mind. It wasn't like Eskel hadn't joined right in, making a spectacle of how well they moved around each other, gratuitous pirouettes and back-to-back moves, plus that boost-flip trick they'd worked out decades ago for fun and still practiced from time to time. They didn't often get such an easily-impressed and appreciative audience.</p>
<p>Jaskier, as usual, smelled of adrenaline-excitement spilling over into arousal after each encounter. He talked without seeming to draw breath for practically the entire day, except when he was pelting Eskel with questions about himself, and Geralt, and witcher training, and even then he never shut up long enough to get a real answer. Jaskier was usually better at that; after five years he seemed to realize that it took Geralt a while to dredge up words for things. Today he was so worked up that it seemed he couldn't give Eskel more than a minute or two before he gave up and galloped on to the next thing.</p>
<p>Eskel gave a wry little headshake when he met Geralt's eyes as they again traded food from their packs for dinner, though he forebore to comment on Geralt tossing a couple of sweet buns over to Jaskier. Clearly Eskel was enjoying the discovery that Geralt had, if anything, understated what traveling with Jaskier was like.</p>
<p>Jaskier finally quieted down as they ate--or at least, he stopped <em>talking</em> and settled down to humming interspersed with subvocalizing. He was probably composing songs about today already. They sounded very... emphatic. Clearly the showing off had been inspirational, however funny Eskel found it, and after all Jaskier was here for songwriting material. </p>
<p>He'd barely looked at Geralt all day, with Eskel there. Maybe he was realizing that there were lots of other witchers he could be getting stories from. </p>
<p>When they were done with dinner and cleaned up, Geralt handed over his whole bedroll to Jaskier--he usually split it, since no matter how often Jaskier came on the road with him he never had the foresight to bring anything to make camping out more comfortable. But Geralt could share Eskel's blankets comfortably enough, so Jaskier might as well have both of Geralt's. </p>
<p>Jaskier looked a little bewildered at the largesse, but made up his bed as he always did, not liking to sit on the ground if he could avoid it. He did, at least, after all this time, have the hang of choosing the upwind side of the fire and leaving room for Geralt to <em>also</em> be upwind. Then he sat down to do his elaborate personal cleaning routine, or at least the parts of it that he did when they were outdoors--hair, face, hands, and any particular bits he thought needed attention. </p>
<p>Usually Geralt sat across from him and cleaned and checked his weapons; it seemed like the companionably equivalent activity. But Eskel pulled his knitting out of his pack, and Eskel would probably start laughing at Geralt <em>actually out loud</em> if he started doing unnecessary weapons maintenance, after all the showing off he'd already done today. They'd both very sensibly done all the cleaning and sharpening necessary immediately after they'd finished the last hunt, so as to be ready for whatever came next. </p>
<p>So Geralt had no choice. He turned to lean against Eskel and pulled his own knitting bag out, shuffling through his yarns as he considered what colors he'd like to cast on next. </p>
<p>He'd really liked the look of the yellow and red together, but he didn't have enough of the red to do another pair of socks with it as the main color, and he didn't altogether trust himself not to fall right back into the pattern he'd just done. There was a nice clear dark blue, though; if he did that as the main color with designs in red and yellow--maybe narrow stripes in an orthogonal pattern--that ought to be different enough.</p>
<p>He heard the soft squelchy little sounds of Jaskier putting the lemon-ish smelling stuff on his face halt before they were due to, and glanced up. Jaskier was staring, eyes very wide, as if he didn't know where socks came from and this was some sort of alarming sorcery.</p>
<p>"You're... knitting," Jaskier said. "You both knit."</p>
<p>Eskel replied without raising his head or halting the steady movement of his hands, though Geralt could feel how all his attention was focused on Jaskier. "Didn't anyone ever tell you where socks come from?" </p>
<p>Geralt let out a little burst of laughter at that--of course Eskel had had exactly the same thought he'd had about Jaskier's reaction, but Geralt wouldn't have managed to voice it so quickly. </p>
<p>"I didn't know you favored such <em>colorful</em> socks," Jaskier said, and Geralt could actually see him trying to think of a time he'd ever seen Geralt's socks. </p>
<p>Geralt usually left the really bright ones in his pack when Jaskier was with him; he hadn't ever really considered why, but he realized now that he had known Jaskier would inevitably ask questions. The thought of trying to describe long winters of making yarn with his brothers--of how different those winters were, nowadays, from what they used to be before, and what separated <em>before</em> from <em>now</em>--stopped Geralt's throat so that he almost couldn't breathe, let alone speak. </p>
<p>Eskel shot him a little look--he'd felt Geralt's thoughts turn--and said in an uninviting tone, "We take what we can get. No harm in bright colors if they're hidden under your boots."</p>
<p>Jaskier glanced down at himself, and over at the doublet he'd neatly set aside, which was mostly lilac except where it was a very bright pink. He stiffened a bit at the seeming criticism, and said, "I see," and returned to putting the stuff on his face, just so.</p>
<p>Geralt felt a little pang, as he always did when Jaskier was quiet and clearly unhappy about it, but it was better than letting him ask the particular questions he would have asked tonight. Geralt leaned into Eskel in thanks, and Eskel jostled him lightly in acknowledgement. </p>
<p>The quiet lasted about two minutes before Jaskier started up again, wavering between muttering under his breath and subvocalizing as he took the lemon-smelling stuff off his face and started rubbing the rose-scented stuff on the exact same places. </p>
<p>Eskel glanced over at Geralt again, and Geralt ducked his head and grabbed the blue yarn to start casting on. He was really, really never going to hear the end of this.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Even after they'd bedded down--Jaskier in Geralt's bedroll, Geralt and Eskel pressed together in Eskel's, still wearing their shirts and braies like they would if they were at an inn with humans all around--Jaskier kept making those little throat-noises to himself. Thinking of it, Geralt realized that that wasn't uncommon, though usually it was softer, lulling himself to sleep. Jaskier must have been particularly intent on some dramatic bit of the ballad he was coming up with tonight.</p>
<p>Eventually Jaskier's breathing did even out, and his subvocalizations turned to sleeping hums and lip-smacks and funny riffling breaths and slurred mumbles.</p>
<p>Eskel laughed against the back of Geralt's neck, just a gust of breath and a sound only a witcher would hear. "You weren't exaggerating. He's never quiet."</p>
<p>"Never," Geralt agreed, just as quietly. As noisy as Jaskier was, neither of them would risk waking him. "Today's been impressive, though. Even for him." </p>
<p>"Hm," Eskel said. "New audience?"</p>
<p>Geralt shrugged. He had no idea what had driven Jaskier's actions today, but he more or less never did, so that was nothing new. He thought of how sure he'd felt, after the last time he'd seen Jaskier, that they were some kind of friends. He was no more sure after today than he'd been before seeing Jaskier again, but... it was good to see him. Good to have him know Eskel, and for Eskel to know him.</p>
<p>He didn't know how to say any of that to Eskel, but then he didn't need to. </p>
<p>Geralt pressed back against Eskel instead of speaking any further, wriggling in suggestion. Eskel had shed the last of his toxins by now, and neither of them had needed to take any major potions today, and Geralt could do with a fuck. Eskel nuzzled the back of his neck in agreement, and they went through the practiced motions of getting their braies down just enough, adjusting their position just so. </p>
<p>This, at least, was simple. Geralt knew he had at least one friend, and he knew how to do this. If Jaskier continued to be a bright, jangling mystery, well... it was nice to have something completely different flitting through his life from time to time.</p>
<hr/>
<p>He and Eskel knocked off the last of the contracts they'd picked up the next morning; Jaskier, once again smelling wound up and turned on after watching the show, bid them a hurried farewell when they got to town and headed off in the direction of the brothel he liked to visit here. He knew some of the girls, and they helped him with the really complicated bits of his personal grooming routines--the ones that needed hot wax or boiled honey, or more than one set of deft, experienced hands, or specialized tools Jaskier didn't carry around. The sex he sometimes had with them seemed to be incidental to the process, an additional activity that everyone involved could take or leave with equal good humor. Geralt found all of that a little intriguing in the same way that he found the odder habits of some rare monsters intriguing. </p>
<p>"Huh," Eskel said, and Geralt knew that that was his summation and judgment of the whole experience of traveling with Jaskier for two days: it sure was... an experience. Eskel didn't have any more words to encapsulate it than Geralt did. </p>
<p>Geralt nodded agreement, and then they split up the contracts to go shake payments out of their various clients.</p>
<p>Geralt didn't see Jaskier again for several weeks after that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Things went back to normal, or what had become normal in the years since Jaskier first flung himself into Geralt's life. Jaskier turned up every so often, writing songs and demanding stories and talking incessantly--though never as much as he had when Eskel was with them, so Geralt supposed that Eskel had been right about Jaskier playing up for a fresh audience.</p><p>Jaskier asked after Eskel each time they met up, in a manner Geralt vaguely recognized as the way humans politely inquired after each other's families when they met. Geralt always just shrugged at him; he hadn't seen Eskel since they'd parted after traveling together for nearly a week, and wasn't likely to see him again unless they both made it to Kaer Morhen that winter. They both tried every winter, of course, and had mostly succeeded in the last several years, but nothing was ever certain. Geralt normally tried not to think about Eskel until he saw or heard him.</p><p>The autumn air was turning sharp in the way that meant Geralt had to head north soon if he didn't want to have to tunnel through the snow to get up to Kaer Morhen, when he met Jaskier in Novigrad. Jaskier followed him around the city as he picked up the assorted supplies he needed, talking just like always.</p><p>"I'll be just down the road in Oxenfurt for the winter term," he said, when Geralt had been working his way through the bookshop for an hour, scanning every shelf for anything new that might be of interest. The disorganization of the shop meant there was no quick way to be sure, but Geralt didn't mind the hunt. He'd already picked up a couple of volumes that he could picture Lambert standing on a table to drunkenly read from, with many tangents to complain about the quality.</p><p>"You could come and see me there, you know," Jaskier went on, prodding at his shoulder with a finger, the only way he ever really touched Geralt. He always kept a little bit of space, probably so he could dodge if Geralt turned on him. "Since I won't be traveling to accidentally run across you. I suppose lectures on music theory would be lost on you, but I have friends there. They'd be interested to meet you."</p><p>Geralt blinked at the shelf in front of him, and felt something in him deflate a little. Jaskier had friends <em>there</em>, in Oxenfurt--people who understood music theory. Who Jaskier believed would be interested in music theory, unlike Geralt, who he clearly didn't think would like listening to him talk, or understand if he did. </p><p>He probably didn't think Geralt liked having him around. He probably only talked to Geralt so much out of habit, not because he cared for Geralt to know any of the things he said. Of course he didn't count Geralt among his friends.</p><p>"Can't," Geralt said, forcing his gaze to move steadily along the next shelf down. "There's a place we go in the winter. Witchers."</p><p>He could have skipped it this year; he was near to being too late to go already, and if he'd lingered another week or two here, taking jobs and showing off for Jaskier, the decision would have been out of his hands. Eskel would have laughed for an hour the next time he saw Geralt. </p><p>Good thing Jaskier had spared him that.</p><p>"Ah," Jaskier said, sounding suddenly flat, all the usual music gone out of his voice. Uninterested, probably. He wouldn't think there were any interesting stories in witchers holing up together for the winter; he had no idea what it was like, sitting all cozy together by the hearth while the snow piled up and wind howled outside, drinking and swapping tales and laughing together.</p><p>For a second he pictured Jaskier there among them, laughing and chattering and listening raptly when the stories started flowing.</p><p>But... they might not, with Jaskier there. Vesemir certainly wouldn't like having a human in their stronghold, and Lambert would be nasty, and Aubry and Olli and Tor would go drink in one of the upstairs rooms. They were quiet even among their brothers; Jaskier's exuberance would probably silence them altogether.</p><p>"I can't," Geralt said, and Jaskier turned away from what he'd been looking at--he'd gotten farther away while Geralt was thinking--to look puzzled. Of course he had no idea what fantasies Geralt had briefly entertained; it wasn't as if Jaskier himself would wish to spend an entire winter snowed in with a pack of witchers, after all. He had things to do in Oxenfurt, and even if he didn't, Kaer Morhen was nothing like the places Jaskier would like to spend the cold months. </p><p>"Can't tell you where," Geralt explained, as if that was all he'd considered himself. "The place we go in the winter. It's secret."</p><p>It had been, anyway, once. Not much point in keeping it so scrupulously secret now--not that Jaskier would put Kaer Morhen in ballads if Geralt told him not to. He hadn't mentioned Eskel in any of his newest ones. Still, it was a sensible reason not to even think about bringing Jaskier.</p><p>"Oh," Jaskier said, frowning. He smelled faintly annoyed--that Geralt was keeping a story from him? "Only your <em>friends</em> get to know. You'll be spending the winter with Eskel, I suppose."</p><p>Geralt shrugged again, starting to feel annoyed himself. He didn't want to tell Jaskier that he didn't know if Eskel would be there, whether any of the others would be there, because he never knew they were alive and well until he saw them in front of him. For a moment he was tempted to dump out the ugly story of the massacre, the destruction of the Wolf School, like throwing down a heap of drowners' guts at Jaskier's feet to make him shriek and jump back.</p><p>He'd already realized that Jaskier didn't think they were friends, that he had been a fool to think it himself. Jaskier saying it like that only confirmed it.</p><p>And still, what came out when he opened his mouth was, "I almost thought you and I were. Friends."</p><p>Jaskier stared at him, opening and closing his mouth a full three times before he said, "<em>Six years</em>. Six years and you <em>almost thought</em>--fuck you, Geralt. Of course we're not. Clearly." </p><p>Jaskier flung down the book he'd been holding and stomped out of the bookshop. Geralt listened to his footsteps retreating steadily, furiously, until he lost the sound in the general din halfway across the square; he felt sick at how clearly offended Jaskier had been at the mere suggestion that they might possibly be friends. </p><p>Then he returned to searching the shelves. He wanted to bring a good haul of books with him to Kaer Morhen this year; he didn't think he'd be in much of a mood for telling stories.</p>
<hr/><p>Eskel mentioned Jaskier's name exactly once, changed the subject as soon as he caught Geralt's reaction--so with hardly a pause in speaking--and never asked him another question about the bard all winter. By the time spring was creeping up into the mountains and they were shearing the goats, Geralt could almost pretend he'd forgotten the bright, baffling thread woven through the last six years of his life.</p>
<hr/><p>He couldn't actually forget, of course. The first three towns he stopped in that spring brought him reminders of Jaskier--the first two there were other bards performing his songs, and he cuaght Jaskier's own voice floating to him from a few streets away in the third.</p><p>Geralt left that town without even checking for contracts; Jaskier's voice had been coming from right about the location of the local noticeboard, and Geralt wasn't that desperate for gold.</p><p>All the contracts he took over the next few weeks seemed very dull. It didn't seem like anything would change, either. Winter would be good, as it generally was, but everything until then was probably going to be just as flat and boring. He'd probably have a handful of awful surprises, but he couldn't imagine any good ones, any bright, bewildering distractions from the Path.</p><p>He... missed Jaskier. Geralt had been missing him for months already, even when he was among his own kind at Kaer Morhen, and missed him more now, on the road with no hope of an absurdly noisy companion along the way.</p><p>He wondered where Jaskier was finding new stories, now. </p><p>"I liked him," Geralt informed Roach. She flicked her ears back at him thoughtfully, and Geralt sighed and said, "Yes, I still like him. Even if he..."</p><p>Geralt remembered that day by the stream, the way Jaskier had smiled at him and said that he liked traveling with Geralt. That he wouldn't travel with him if he didn't like it. And before Geralt had said what he said, Jaskier had wanted him to come visit him in Oxenfurt.</p><p>Even if they hadn't been friends... they'd been something, Geralt thought. The familiarity they shared had been something out of the ordinary. Jaskier had liked him, in a way, before Geralt so completely offended him. </p><p>Maybe... maybe he wouldn't still be angry, by now. It had been months. That was a long time for a human, especially one as young as Jaskier--he couldn't be more than twenty-five, even now. Perhaps he'd have forgotten to be so angry, the next time their paths crossed. Maybe... maybe Geralt wouldn't be so quick to leave town, the next time he caught some sign of Jaskier's presence.</p>
<hr/><p>As it happened, the next time he saw Jaskier was when he stumbled into an inn, filthy and exhausted at the end of a job. Jaskier was in the middle of a song, but he still glanced over to see who had come in. His face did something complicated at the sight of Geralt.</p><p>He'd meant to make for the innkeeper and pay whatever was necessary to get a bath and bed as soon as he got through the door, but he found himself a pillar to lean against and listened. Geralt felt himself smiling a little by the time the song finished. </p><p>Jaskier promptly launched into "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher," dancing and gesturing to make it unavoidably obvious that there was indeed a witcher in their midst. Geralt glared--he'd already been paid, in fact, so there was no need to belabor the point to people who had nothing to do with it--but Jaskier grinned and kept singing, drawing people to join in on the chorus, and they mostly <em>did</em>. They smiled at him, and someone passed Geralt a drink, so he stood still until the song was done.</p><p>After that Jaskier went on to one of the less pointed songs about him, and Geralt went to get his bath; he got an unusually good price on it and the bed. He'd have to thank Jaskier, later.</p>
<hr/><p>The next morning, the sun was barely up before the innkeeper came to beg Geralt's help with a sticky situation involving his cousin's daughter's young man's former sweetheart and a confused set of accusations regarding suspicious occurrences that might or might not be the results of curses, which had dragged most of the cousin's village in one way or another. Geralt nodded, already mentally organizing the details and likely culprits, supernatural and otherwise. He asked absently, "Do you know where the bard is?"</p><p>The village's troubles wouldn't get any more hopelessly tangled before midday--if anything, they were only likely to be suddenly and drastically simplified. It was the sort of thing Jaskier both adored seeing unraveled and was unexpectedly helpful with, sometimes.</p><p>"Jaskier? Went off two hours past midnight with the girl he'd been making eyes at half the night. Wherever he is, he'll still be sleeping it off."</p><p>"Mm," Geralt said, smiling a little. Jaskier had found a new lady-love, then. He would be wrapped up in that for a few days at least, if everything Geralt had seen and heard in the last several years was anything to judge by. Geralt would just have to let Jaskier interrogate him about the mess in the village later--and perhaps try to think of what Jaskier would ask people, if he were at Geralt's side today.</p><p>The thought of Jaskier listening to him tell the story--when things with his lady had cooled a little or gone disastrously wrong and forced him to leave town with Geralt--was also pleasing. </p><p>"Tell him I've gone out on a contract and I'll be back soon, if he asks. I'll go and see what I can do for your cousin."</p>
<hr/><p>In the end Geralt ended up killing two villagers who went for his throat when he started sorting things out--though at least neither of them were closely related to the innkeeper--and broke exactly zero curses since there hadn't been any in the first place. The innkeeper's cousin paid him half of what would have been his daughter's dowry, now that she'd run off without it; Geralt honestly wasn't sure what he was being paid for, but he wasn't going to turn down gold after two straight days wading through these people's long-held grudges and weird fixations and inexplicable petty thefts. </p><p>He'd probably saved the village from the compounding misery of any of them killing their own neighbor, and maybe that was enough of a service when things had gotten so bad. Geralt had certainly seen the aftermath of folk murdering each other over less, and the first death was never the end of it. Two was a bargain, probably.</p><p>The sun was already down by the time it was all over, but Geralt declined to spend the night in the village and pointed Roach back down the road toward the town where the inn was. They were maybe two-thirds of the way there when Geralt caught the smell of blood, and a tiny pained human sound. </p><p>He was off Roach and hurrying toward the source of the sound and smell, only realizing as he dropped to his knees at Jaskier's side that he'd known exactly what he was going to find from the first instant.</p><p>Jaskier wasn't <em>too</em> badly injured--none of his fingers were broken, so whoever had beaten him hadn't truly thought about how to maximize suffering--but he had blood all over his face and seemed only half-conscious. That might also have something to do with the alcohol Geralt could smell on him, once he forced himself to filter out the more pressing scents of blood and pain and fear.</p><p>Geralt glanced around; it didn't look like his attackers had done this right here, nor dumped Jaskier here. Geralt didn't know if Jaskier had made it all the way here from the town under his own power, but from the looks of the indifferent job they'd done, Geralt could handle anyone who turned up to finish the job on his bard if he took Jaskier back to the inn. </p><p>The assessment was done almost before Geralt's knees hit the ground. He reached out gently to wipe some of the blood away from Jaskier's mouth. "Jaskier? Can you hear me?"</p><p>"Geralt," Jaskier said, eyes flashing open. He jerked like he wanted to bolt upright, but the motion was arrested with a wince before he got very far. He wasn't enunciating well, but Geralt could understand that much without difficulty. "Found you! I'm--trouble."</p><p>"Yes. You are," Geralt agreed, getting an arm around Jaskier to pull him to his feet, and declining to remark on the idea that Jaskier had found anything but a fairly soft patch of ditch to fall down in. If it came to that, he <em>had</em> successfully put himself in Geralt's path; he could have partial credit. </p><p>Jaskier let himself be pulled up, and leaned against Geralt, warm and trusting, without hesitation. Geralt hugged him a little; the spring nights were still cold for a human, and Jaskier was without a doublet, let alone a cloak or any more sensible outer garment. He was only wearing a thin linen shirt, barely laced, over his trousers. Geralt looked around the immediate vicinity, but didn't see any brightly colored clothes, or Jaskier's usual traveling satchel. Or his lute.</p><p>"Where are your things?"</p><p>Jaskier made a mournful sound and curled into Geralt's shoulder, clutching at his shirt. "Town. I hope?"</p><p>Jaskier's lean against him was turning into total limpness; Geralt said, "We'll go to the inn, then," and hoisted Jaskier into his arms. Jaskier made a faint noise of pain or protest and then seemed to pass out entirely. Geralt walked back out to the road to find Roach patiently waiting for him. </p><p>Geralt turned his head in the direction of the town--not two miles, he thought. It would be simpler to carry Jaskier than to mess around getting him onto Roach. </p><p>"Fitting end to the day, huh," he said to Roach, as she fell into step beside him. She chuffed and turned her head, but only nuzzled at Jaskier and didn't try for even a nip; she was too good a horse to kick a man when he was down. </p><p>Or maybe she was just as pleased as Geralt was to have him with them again, even if he'd only come looking for Geralt because he was having a worse day than they were.</p>
<hr/><p>The innkeeper looked conflicted at the sight of Geralt with Jaskier in his arms, but that was easier to manage than outright hostility. "The situation in the village is settled. Your cousin's girl is all right. I need a room, and a bath sent up. I have coin to pay."</p><p>That seemed to decide the innkeeper in favor of ignoring Jaskier's existence. He nodded and said, "Same room you were in before is open, bath should be ready shortly."</p><p>Geralt nodded and went without making any further inquiries about where Jaskier's possessions might be; he could track them down and repossess them himself if he had to, and he didn't care to spend any more time negotiating with humans tonight. </p><p>He laid Jaskier down on the reasonably clean bed and lit a lamp with a quick flick of his fingers, then set to work getting Jaskier out of the clothes he still had on. His boots were dusty like he had managed to walk some way in them--the dust ground into his trouser-knees and the heels of his hands showed he'd fallen more than once before he went down in the ditch where Geralt had found him. </p><p>Bruises were coming up on his belly and chest, more detectable by touch than sight, since Jaskier was hairy enough to mostly hide them. The shirt Geralt eased off him was already stained with dirt and blood, so Geralt had no qualms about using a cleanish part of it to clean the worst of the blood off of Jaskier's face and throat. Geralt turned him onto his side to check, but there were no marks on his back; a closer examination showed only a very little bruising on Jaskier's knuckles--no surprise if he'd been careful with any punches he threw to avoid hurting his own hands.</p><p>As showy as it looked--and as dramatic as Jaskier had made it by wandering out of town looking for him--he really wasn't too badly hurt. Geralt's best guess was that he'd gotten into a drunken fight with a few others--possibly last night's girl had brothers, or her husband did. But they hadn't been murderous, or else Jaskier had played helpless quickly enough to make them leave off before he was hurt too badly. Geralt felt a little proud at the thought that Jaskier might have learned at least one survival skill in the last six years, to go along with his wildly reckless bed habits.</p><p>Jaskier stayed limp while Geralt tidied him up and checked him over, running careful fingers over each mark to be sure there wasn't more blood or breakage under it than appeared at a glance, and listening carefully to his breathing and heartbeat. Jaskier was being quiet--properly quiet, not even mumbling and humming to himself as he so often did in his sleep, too sodden with the combination of alcohol and head injuries to stir. That was unnerving, but his heartbeat and breathing were steady; he might only be deeply asleep, nothing worse.</p><p>He likely hadn't gotten much rest last night, after all. </p><p>This was easier than the alternative, anyway. Sooner or later Jaskier would wake up and know Geralt had looked after him, and Geralt already knew that Jaskier had gone looking for him when he was in trouble, and... maybe there was no need to spill a lot of words all over things, if they both knew that much. This was already someplace they could go on from.</p><p>Geralt flipped a blanket over Jaskier when heavy steps in the corridor signaled the arrival of the bath, and left his stained clothes in plain view, but turned his face, not too badly marked now that the blood was wiped off, the other way. No need for anyone to know how little Jaskier was hurt until Geralt knew whether Jaskier needed to pretend he was at death's door to keep a fearsome pack of angry brothers off his back.</p><p>Two servants came in, and set up the tub and filled it with their usual brisk efficiency--possibly a little brisker, when Geralt was in the room, than they would have been for another guest. Geralt would ask Jaskier, but he was sure that Jaskier alone with an inn servant and a bath would turn into a lengthy and elaborate seduction tale, so that wasn't exactly a fair comparison.</p><p>When the servants were gone Geralt shut the door and jammed it shut with a few useful odds and ends, then dipped a basinful of the hot water from the bath, and found a proper cloth to use to get Jaskier cleaned up the rest of the way. </p><p>He felt through Jaskier's hair carefully, combing out the little tangles and rinsing out a few bits of dirt and grass. He didn't find any worse head injuries than the few punches he seemed to have taken--nose, cheek, maybe another to the jaw that would have hurt whoever hit him as much as it hurt Jaskier. Geralt elected not to actually stick his fingers in Jaskier's mouth to check, but from what he could see and feel through his cheeks, his teeth were all still where they belonged.</p><p>During that process, as Geralt carefully tipped Jaskier's head this way and that, and used the warm damp cloth to get the last of the blood off his nose and chin and throat, Jaskier's heartbeat changed. Geralt bent over him and sniffed close to his skin--his scent hung in the air of the closed room, so Geralt had to be close to the source to detect how it changed--and nodded to himself. "Hm."</p><p>Jaskier was processing the alcohol--only the slow and steady human way, but he was sliding across the vague threshold from "extremely drunk" to "sobering up". Still, it was a change by slow degrees. Geralt was holding Jaskier's left hand, patiently cleaning away the dirt ground into the heel of it, when Jaskier stirred, blinking. "Geralt?"</p><p>"Mm-hm," Geralt acknowledged, and didn't look up until Jaskier closed his hand on the cloth and Geralt's fingers--a grip Geralt could have broken, though he might have had to break Jaskier's fingers to do it. He was a practiced lutist; he had impressively strong fingers, for a human.</p><p>Geralt was not ever going to be the person who damaged Jaskier's fingers on purpose. He looked up and met Jaskier's eyes, which were still a little glassy but mostly focused this time. </p><p>"Geralt," Jaskier repeated. "You--" he looked around and blinked in bafflement at the bath.</p><p>Before he could get too far in the direction of the wrong idea, Geralt said, "That's for me. I've had a long day. If you're awake you can wash yourself."</p><p>Geralt watched Jaskier's eyes narrow as he worked through what Geralt had said, and what he hadn't: <em>If you can't stay awake, or you can't do it yourself, I will put off my bath to finish cleaning you up.</em></p><p>Jaskier nodded to himself a little--Geralt heard the familiar subvocalizations start up as Jaskier worked the words through his mind until he was satisfied--and then pushed himself up onto his elbow and said, "Give me that, then. Go... wash. You need it."</p><p>"I'm not the one who passed out in a ditch tonight," Geralt pointed out, but he <em>was</em> the one who'd done an extremely unpleasant day's work and still needed to scrub the feeling, if not the actual substance, of human blood from his skin. He stood and stripped, quickly and efficiently, listening for the small sounds of movement behind him as Jaskier sat up, dipped the cloth in the basin, and got on with mopping himself up. </p><p>Geralt slid into the heat of the tub, allowed himself one heartfelt sigh, and then looked over at Jaskier who had, unsurprisingly, already moved on from trying to get himself clean to brushing the dirt from his trousers. </p><p>Apart from the dirt and bloodspots, the garment was otherwise a color Geralt would have named as "head fins of a healthy male drowner living on the Velen or Novigrad coast" but which he thought Jaskier called "peacock," which was stupid. Peacocks typically sported at least five distinguishable colors per bird, and their coloring varied significantly depending on the subtype--and even so, Geralt had never seen a peacock whose blue feathers weren't at least two shades darker than that.</p><p>Jaskier glanced up and gave him an imploring look. "Can I..."</p><p>Geralt rolled his eyes and waved toward his pack, which contained the stuff he used to get bloodstains out of his clothes and hair and, a couple of times when he'd felt bad about the splash zone being bigger than he expected, also off Jaskier's stuff. Jaskier dug in an outside pocket and withdrew the little blue glass bottle, holding it up for Geralt to see as he returned to perch on the edge of the bed--walking more or less steadily now, so he'd fallen back within the range of his ability to function while intoxicated, even if he'd be a bit flushed and wobbly for hours yet. </p><p>Geralt nodded approval--not just permission for Jaskier to use the stuff, but confirmation that it was the right one. He'd given Jaskier a talk a few years ago about why he should never, ever touch Geralt's potions that had made quite an impression. Geralt had heard him muttering <em>melt you from the inside</em> and <em>probably go blind first and then die</em> and other key points for days afterward.</p><p>None of <em>that</em> had ever turned up in a ballad, he'd noticed.</p><p>While Jaskier set the cleaning potion aside and returned to getting as much dirt off his clothes by hand as he could, Geralt said, "You weren't too clear before--where are the rest of your things?"</p><p>Jaskier glanced up and looked around--less like he expected his belongings to be somewhere in the room and more like he thought Geralt's question would draw an attack from some unseen direction. "I... left them behind. They should be fine, I think. I mean--" Jaskier waved at himself and his fairly minor injuries. "They were angry, but not... lute-smashing and clothes-burning angry."</p><p>"Mm." Geralt could see that much, and knew he only had to wait for Jaskier to elaborate, now that he was awake and speaking. </p><p>"I, ah, there was a young lady last night--you might have seen her? She was greatly enjoying my performance. Hair of gold, eyes of amber, figure of--" Jaskier sketched a generously curved shape, and Geralt thought he could, actually, remember which woman Jaskier was describing. He nodded.</p><p>"She told me her brothers were all away and she hated to spend a night all alone so, naturally, I kept her company, and we had a lovely time together and not very much sleep," Jaskier said, smiling a little in memory before he winced--obviously also in memory. "And then her brothers came home late this afternoon, which was fine as we'd gotten mostly dressed by then and her brothers are good lads who understand that she'll marry if and when and who she likes and in the meantime her favors are her own to bestow. But, ah..."</p><p>Jaskier ducked his head, scratching a bit at the knee of his trousers, then tipping a few drops of the stain-removing potion out onto the damp cloth. </p><p>"But," Geralt prompted. </p><p>Jaskier heaved a sigh but did not slow his work on the trousers. "<em>But</em>, I played in this town a year or two ago when the young lady in question happened to be away visiting relatives in another village. And on that occasion, there was a lovely young <em>man</em>, and..."</p><p>"Turns out he has a sister," Geralt filled in dryly.</p><p>Jaskier flashed him a bright, false smile and then looked down to his work again. "This sort of thing is always much funnier later on, in ballads. As it was... for a while it seemed like he might not say anything, and just let the whole thing go, but then... I could tell he was hurt. <em>He</em> hadn't felt he could casually introduce his family to a man he'd obviously spent the night with--you know how it can be in small towns. So I tried to sort of... reassure him, a little..."</p><p>Geralt squinted at him. "With your tongue?"</p><p>"Well my tongue is <em>generally</em> involved when I'm saying <em>anything</em>," Jaskier said, "but it was a... more direct application, yes. I thought we were out of sight! But then... there started to be a lot of shouting. And crying. And their other two brothers were understandably confused about the whole situation. And at that point I... thought that I'd rather be very drunk before they settled the question of who had more right to kick me all the way down the street and out of town. Unconscious, possibly. But in fact I was precisely drunk enough that when they asked me to choose between them I... may have suggested a threesome."</p><p>Even <em>Geralt</em> knew better than that, and he'd been to bed at least once with every living person he called "brother." He gave Jaskier a suitably judgmental look, mostly wasted as Jaskier was still focused on his clothes with an intensity that might have been either embarrassment or a struggle to concentrate on the task while still fairly drunk.</p><p>"So then they were... upset," Jaskier went on. "They're not naturally violent people, they're lovely! But I did rather provoke them, so I tried to just... let them get it out of their systems, and then when they weren't looking I took off to try to find you. And," Jaskier brightened, smiling a little, "I did!"</p><p>Geralt shot Jaskier a dubious look at that, and this time Jaskier did see it. Jaskier stood up and located soap and a cloth, but not before Geralt saw the way the brightness had gone out of him, more than could be accounted for by Geralt silently judging him for getting that drunk.</p><p>It was probably about the other thing, then. "I was," Geralt started, just as Jaskier said, "I know--"</p><p>Geralt met Jaskier's eyes over the proffered soap and cloth, and then took them and focused on putting them to use. </p><p>Jaskier, oddly, stayed silent. Well, mostly silent. He was subvocalizing non-stop, but even that seemed like fits and starts, like he couldn't decide on anything to say. He was starting to smell anxious, upset, and Geralt thought he should probably step in before Jaskier wound himself up worse, if only to keep from having the room reek of unhappy human more than it already did.</p><p>"How'd it go teaching music theory?"</p><p>Jaskier jerked a little in Geralt's peripheral vision and went utterly silent for several seconds. There was the usual little preparatory hum of subvocalizing and then he said lightly, "Dull, really. Undergraduates are monsters but in very boring and predictable ways. <em>Three</em> of them tried to get me into bed for better marks! They weren't even attracted to me otherwise!"</p><p>Geralt's lips twitched, almost a smile, as he washed himself, and he didn't try to tally up the reasons his bedmates over the winter had chosen him.</p><p>"And how was your winter?" Jaskier asked. Polite--like the way he used to ask about Eskel, last year.</p><p>"Cold," Geralt said. The snows had been bad; they'd moved as many of the goats as they could find indoors before the solstice. Which had, actually, meant that the Great Hall stayed quite warm, and featured a great many goat births when the season finally began to turn. They'd never gotten so much kid wool at a shearing before. </p><p>"Hmmm," Jaskier said. "A <em>clue</em>."</p><p>Geralt was startled into looking over at him, and Jaskier smiled cautiously. </p><p>"To the location of your secret wintering site," Jaskier explained. "If I can get you to say one word a year maybe I can start narrowing it down."</p><p>As if Jaskier would want to find it. As if Jaskier expected to see him for many springs to come, to tease clues out of him. </p><p>Geralt wanted to tease back, to say something playful, but the words that fell out of his mouth when he opened it were, "There were eight of us this year."</p><p>Jaskier's face went very still. Geralt looked away again, focused on cleaning between his toes as if Vesemir was going to be looking to see if he'd done it properly. </p><p>"First time it's been less than ten, as far as anyone could remember," Geralt said. "We're pretty sure Lambert will be back, Eskel saw him in November. Don't know about some of the others. No one's seen Falko three years running now. He's probably not going to turn up." </p><p>The little wounded sound Jaskier made was right at the confusing borderline between subvocalizations to be ignored and sounds it was all right to notice. Geralt chose to ignore it. He shouldn't have said any of that. It was a stupid thing to bring up to Jaskier; no one wanted to hear about this part of being a witcher. When Jaskier sang about him being a lone hero, no one asked why he was alone, where the rest of his brothers had gone.</p><p>Jaskier was subvocalizing again, obviously trying to think of what to say; Geralt hoped it took him long enough to decide that Geralt could be out of the bath, dressed, and <em>somewhere else</em> before Jaskier actually spoke.</p><p>Then he heard footsteps hurrying toward their door, and realized he had another way out of this. "Might want to put your pants on," Geralt said, and nodded toward the door just before someone knocked.</p><p>Jaskier stared at the door for a moment, then stood and yanked his damp but mostly clean trousers on as he looked urgently back and forth from Geralt to the door. </p><p>"Who's there," Geralt called out, before Jaskier could try to climb out the narrow shuttered window. </p><p>"Verel," said a voice that didn't sound like it belonged to anyone Jaskier would describe as lovely and young; Jaskier's shocked expression suggested that Verel hadn't been one of the options he was considering. Jaskier pulled on his shirt--damp and still sporting some stains he hadn't gotten to yet--and hurried over to the door, and only fumbled for a moment to remove all the jamming bits Geralt had used to wedge it shut so he could open it, which suggested that this third option was nonetheless very welcome.</p><p>The person revealed was, if Geralt was not mistaken, the town's gray-haired blacksmith, whose gender was decidedly--and thus presumably deliberately--not obvious. Jaskier leaned against the doorframe in a way that suggested they'd met before, and that some steps were left to carry out in the dance between them. Geralt shook his head and went back to washing, but he found himself smiling as he did.</p><p>"Heard all that ruckus between Ash and Etta," Verel said. "I got Peter to bring your things over to my place when they realized you'd slipped away, and then I heard that witcher brought you here."</p><p>"Oh," Jaskier said, practically <em>swooning</em> against the doorframe now--but gracefully, not like he was actually losing control of his body. "Ah, should I come over there, then? To... pick up my things?"</p><p>There was a little skin-on-skin sound, maybe a calloused hand on Jaskier's face. Verel had Jaskier's things, which must have included all those little jars of variously scented things Jaskier normally put all over himself before bed, and probably someplace cozy and private for him to put them on. Verel probably wouldn't even grumble about helping him with the bits he couldn't reach.</p><p>"Been working on that set of chimes," Verel said, sounding even gruffer than before. "Could use your help getting the tones right."</p><p>"Oh, yes, of course," Jaskier agreed, the flirtation in his voice now not so much replaced as augmented by professional enthusiasm. "I've still got that tuning piece you gave me last year--it works wonderfully. Let me just get my boots."</p><p>Jaskier turned back to the room and looked almost startled by Geralt's presence, and then apologetic; Geralt shook his head, waving him toward the door. "Don't piss this one off, I bet they hit harder."</p><p>"Verel would <em>never</em>," Jaskier said cheerfully, and grabbed his boots, heading out without even stopping to put them on.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the morning, after Geralt had confirmed with the innkeeper that there wasn't any other work for a witcher that needed doing in the immediate vicinity, he packed up, retrieved Roach, and then led her toward the blacksmith's place.</p>
<p>Verel was already at the forge, and after a moment Geralt identified Jaskier--now fully clothed in doublet and trousers of drowner's fin blue--lying on a bench in the shade of the blacksmith's house. His arm was slung over his face, and his belongings were piled next to him. Geralt headed over.</p>
<p>When he got to the edge of the smith's yard, Verel glanced up and flashed an enormous grin in Geralt's direction. "Jaskier! Your minder's here to take you away."</p>
<p>Jaskier sat up with alacrity and shot Geralt a pleading look as he gathered his things. </p>
<p>"Aw, sweetheart, don't run off like that," Verel said, though they made no attempt to actually stop Jaskier, who was <em>blushing</em> now. He did, however, walk over to the forge and press a quick kiss to Verel's cheek before hurrying to Geralt's side.</p>
<p>"We need to get out of this town," Jaskier whispered. This close, Geralt could see that the faint marks on his face were already fading; he was moving like neither his hangover nor his other bruises were troubling him more than Verel's amiable teasing. "And never, ever come back."</p>
<p>Geralt considered having Verel check Roach's shoes, just to drag out whatever was going on here, but he decided to have mercy. "I was just leaving. Come on."</p>
<p>Jaskier made a relieved noise, called out more loudly, "Thank you for your lovely hospitality, Verel!" and then set out at a faster walk than Geralt usually saw from the bard.</p>
<p>Jaskier managed not to say anything else out loud--though there were obviously plenty of words going through his head by the rapid rise and fall of subvocalizations--until they were half a mile down the road out of town, when he stopped, covered his face with both hands, and let out a little wail. </p>
<p>"That bad?" Geralt asked, halting beside him.</p>
<p>"I may have been still... quite drunk," Jaskier said into his hands. "There may have been... performance issues that I have, I swear to you, <em>never experienced before</em>, and I may have become extremely emotional and then vomited. And Verel may have been very kind and understanding about the whole thing and then told me to come back when I'm old enough to hold my liquor properly."</p>
<p>Geralt snorted and started walking again. He was definitely going to have to give Verel all his blacksmithing business when he was in this area. They could swap stories about the damn bard. Maybe swap other things too; Verel seemed like a pretty open-minded sort. Might like to see how well a witcher could hold his liquor--among other things.</p>
<p>When Jaskier caught up with him, he said, "So, you were off sorting something out in that village yesterday, weren't you? What was that about? Was there a curse?"</p>
<p>"No, just humans being humans," Geralt said, and tried to remember all the bits of the lethally stupid mess that he'd thought Jaskier would want to polish up into something prettier and turn into a song. "The baker's daughter and a hunter who lived outside the village were courting..."</p>
<p>Jaskier hopped a little in excitement, and Geralt could hear him starting to come up with a tune already.</p>
<hr/>
<p>They reached another town by nightfall, and Jaskier quickly negotiated the inn's finest--and only--private room in exchange for entertaining the crowd. Looking around, Geralt suspected that was because there was hardly anyone in the place who lived outside drunken-staggering distance, so the room would have gone empty anyway. </p>
<p>Geralt spent the evening looking over the handful of offered contracts he'd picked up and finding people to talk with about the various occurrences. He was fairly certain at least two of them could be explained by feuding neighbors trying to scare each other off using a disputed pasture and field, but the nekker problem seemed to be quite real. It was good timing; he knew an alchemist who paid well for nekker claws, just a couple more days' ride away in the general direction he'd been planning on traveling. </p>
<p>Jaskier only played a few of the more oblique songs he'd written about Geralt; the people he was talking to seemed to make the connection, looking him in the face, but most of the crowd barely noticed him. A memory of another night listening to Jaskier play flickered through his mind: Jaskier singing sad songs, holding the attention of all and turning the evening into something very like a wake, though no one else there had known why. </p>
<p>Was he doing that again, tonight? Leading the crowd to be what Geralt needed them to be, without them ever noticing what the bard was doing?</p>
<p>Maybe... maybe Geralt could ask. Jaskier had seemed to intend to sleep in that bed he'd bargained for tonight, and he'd definitely indicated that he was sharing the room with Geralt. He was flirting, but in the scattershot way he did when he didn't want any one person to get too fixed on him; he played up to the waitresses and the innkeeper and a white-haired lady very obviously in the company of her husband, and never focused on a young unattached person for more than a line or two. </p>
<p>Geralt headed out to check on Roach--and get a breath of cool air and a little comparative quiet--when the crowd started to thin and Jaskier moved into his end-of-the-night sequence of songs. Roach pressed her head companionably against his chest, letting him scratch itchy spots for her as he listened to the rest of the inn's crowd leaving, listened to Jaskier finishing up his last song, collecting a bit of coin...</p>
<p>And bidding the last of the patrons farewell before he headed toward their room for the night, alone. Which meant that unless Geralt bedded down out here with Roach, he was going to be alone with Jaskier in a room again. He could hope that Jaskier had been sufficiently drunk not to remember the stuff Geralt had said last night, just before Verel interrupted, but his luck didn't run that way. He could hope that it would have slipped Jaskier's mind, that he simply wouldn't care to bring it up, but--unless Jaskier's song choices had been wildly coincidental tonight--Jaskier had been paying fairly close attention to him for hours. That didn't make it seem likely to be one of those nights where Geralt could fall into bed and go to sleep without a word exchanged between them.</p>
<p>He wasn't actually sure there ever had been such a night when he was sharing a campsite or inn room with Jaskier, but he kept the dream alive somehow.</p>
<p>"<em>You</em> never bring things up again after I say them," Geralt said, rubbing his knuckles between Roach's ears. She gave him a firm nudge away, as good as telling him that that was exactly why he ought to spend a little more time with people who <em>did</em> talk back. "Yeah, all right, I'm going."</p>
<p>The door to their room opened easily, revealing Jaskier crouching in the corner with a towel slung over his shoulder, pulling out all the supplies to get himself properly, thoroughly clean. He was still dressed, and looked up alertly as Geralt came in, smiling with a hint of caution. "You came back."</p>
<p>"There's a bed," Geralt said, and turned his attention to wedging the door shut so no one else would come wandering in while Jaskier was, for instance, lying naked on the floor with both feet in the air and doing something unnecessarily complicated to the skin of his inner thighs.</p>
<p>It had happened before; while Jaskier was generally happy to be seen naked by more or less anyone, he could be weirdly shy about being seen doing all the grooming he considered necessary. Apparently he was supposed to be <em>maintaining a mystique of effortless cleanliness and naturally pleasant scent</em>. </p>
<p>Geralt was pretty sure even the most ignorant of humans knew you had to wash to be clean, but he hated seeing Jaskier get genuinely embarrassed, not least because it left <em>Geralt</em> as the one who had to smooth things over. Anyway, it was best to have a firmly shut door between them and the world while they slept. Even if it did also mean there was less chance of convenient interruptions and no way to make an exit that was both rapid and smooth, if Jaskier's talking got to be too much tonight. </p>
<p>So far Jaskier was quiet, getting undressed and setting all his clothes aside just so, brushing them clean here and there. Geralt moved around the room setting his own swords and knives where they would be handy, then taking off his boots and brushing them clean while he examined them for any sign of needed repairs. He did the same with his armored jacket and trousers, and by the time he'd taken care of all that, Jaskier had finished messing around with his fingernails and moved on to his toes. </p>
<p>Geralt considered what to do next; he could work on his weapons, but he hadn't had to draw any of them since he'd cleaned them the night before, while Jaskier was off with Verel. Geralt shook his head at himself and dug into his pack, pulling out the knitting bag; it was packed tightly with yarn, so early in the year. He hadn't even had a chance to start a new pair of socks yet. Geralt started pulling out skeins and laying them down, sorting them into the groups that looked good together and trying to remember what he'd planned, when he made his choices at the end of the winter. </p>
<p>"Last fall," Jaskier said, his voice sounding a bit constrained from the way he was curled over himself--almost certainly from that. "In Novigrad, I, ah..."</p>
<p>Geralt swapped two shades of green into different groupings and considered fetching more candles to see how they looked in a brighter light--not that he often saw his own socks in bright daylight, but he'd had good light when he made his choices of what to take for his share.</p>
<p>They'd left a lot of the processed yarn behind, along with this year's freshly sheared wool; they'd had more than they could reasonably carry if they only divided it between the eight of them. Maybe Lambert would show up mid-year and find out that they'd left him a bunch of purple and that lurid yellow-green that they hadn't been able to over-dye to anything less bilious. Maybe he'd track one of them down on the Path to snarl at them about leaving him with nasty clashing colors when <em>he</em> always made sure that there were plenty of neutrals in every year's dye batches. Geralt could tell him that was his fault for not turning up, then, leaving them all to fuck around with a lot of silly colors.</p>
<p>"I think," Jaskier went on, speaking into a pause in the rasp of the file he was using on his toenails, "I may have misunderstood something. I may have been... hasty."</p>
<p>"Hm," Geralt replied, to show he wasn't so absorbed in choosing a color scheme that he couldn't hear Jaskier circling around something that might actually be a point. </p>
<p>"When you..." Jaskier blew on something, twisted himself around to peer at his toes from a different angle, and then nodded satisfaction and set the file aside, picking up the comb for his hair to start the whole top-down cleaning process. "You said you... wondered. If we were friends."</p>
<p>Geralt squinted more intently at the yarn in front of him, and selected the medium gray, and the variegated blue and green. </p>
<p>Jaskier briskly combed out his hair and kept talking. "Being back at Oxenfurt reminded me how easily I made friends there--not just me, I mean, everyone does. You have rooms close to each other, or you're in a few lectures together, or you have one particularly exciting evening of drinking, and that's that, you swear you're friends forever."</p>
<p>Geralt actually did look over at that, blinking. It wasn't that he thought Jaskier was lying, he just... couldn't quite believe it could be that easy. But it would be, of course, for Jaskier or any of the boys or girls like him at Oxenfurt, young and carefree and perfectly, blamelessly human. They'd latch on to each other easily, fearlessly. </p>
<p>Geralt had been like that, when he was six years old and Eskel walked through the gates with the latest batch of new boys. They had claimed each other as friends before night fell, and hadn't wavered since. But it had been a very, very long time since anything had been that simple for Geralt, and he was intensely aware of how very human and very, very young Jaskier was.</p>
<p>Jaskier didn't return his look, focusing very intently on combing out his hair, as if there were enough of it to really even need combing out. He plucked hairs from the comb, rolling them into a little ball he dropped by his knee, then repeated the procedure. </p>
<p>"The thing is," Jaskier continued, "we all said that, but... no one who I said that to in my first year or two of university would still call me a friend. Most of them aren't in Oxenfurt, of course, but the ones who were... they might be polite, or cordial, or suck up a bit if they wanted something, but none of them are my <em>friends</em> anymore, and I think I'd driven at least half of them to actively loathe me by the end of the winter."</p>
<p>Geralt frowned, casting on. Jaskier tended to annoy <em>him</em>, but he would have been among his own kind at Oxenfurt--not just humans, but the sort of humans who shared his enthusiasms. Who were loud in the same way he was, about the same things.</p>
<p>"I realized," Jaskier went on, setting down the comb and picking up the oil he used on his hair, "that I'm not... good at being friends, actually. I'm good at <em>people</em>, generally, especially in tavern-sized crowds, or for a night or two individually. But not friends. Not for very long."</p>
<p>Geralt frowned harder, pulled a stitch too tight, and blew out a breath as he slipped that stitch back off to try again. </p>
<p>"That's... that's why I was so upset when you said that," Jaskier said. "When you said you weren't sure if we were friends. Because you were--are--the only person I've ever managed to stay friends with as long as six years. Everyone else, I fuck it up somehow. I fall in love and make everything complicated, or I fall in love with their spouse, or sibling, or parent, and make everything <em>extremely bad</em>, or I just... disappear for months on end without a word, and they don't like me so much, afterward. So it stung quite a bit, to think that I hadn't actually managed to stay friends with you at all, because you were just putting up with me all these years and never liked me to begin with."</p>
<p>The way Jaskier said it, in the past tense and also, crucially, sitting naked on the floor of the room he was sharing with Geralt, oiling his hair in meticulous little sections, suggested that Jaskier no longer thought that was so. Jaskier seemed to think that if they were not friends, it was because Geralt didn't want to be Jaskier's friend. Didn't like him.</p>
<p>"Pretty good at getting away from things I don't want following me," Geralt muttered to his needles.</p>
<p>Jaskier let out a startled little laugh. "Yes, I--well, yes, that occurred to me. You had plenty of time to learn all the warning signs of my presence. And you can run faster than I can."</p>
<p>Geralt nodded  and picked up a second knitting needle; he did not point out the ease with which he'd avoided Jaskier earlier that spring. That was also in the past now. </p>
<p>Jaskier opened another jar and started rubbing stuff on his face, letting the oil sit on his hair for a while. Geralt had not entirely worked out the pattern of when he did that and when he rinsed it back out immediately. </p>
<p>Something still to be learned, there.</p>
<p>Jaskier was as near to silent as he ever was, humming to himself a little as he finished his face and then rinsed his hair; Geralt knitted the first plain section and picked up the variegated yarn to start setting up the pattern. </p>
<p>It was Geralt's turn to say something, he was pretty sure. He didn't have to; Jaskier seemed content with, or at least willing to accept, the understanding they'd already established. But Geralt had missed him, and hadn't liked parting the way they had; it was no less true of Jaskier than any of his witcher brothers that any time they saw each other might be the last. He wouldn't like to part on such bad terms again, or for Jaskier to fall to doubting the next time he didn't see Geralt for a while.</p>
<p>Jaskier had finished with hair and face both, and moved on to the step where he used a dry brush to go over every part of himself he could reach, raising a little flush all over his skin as he went. Geralt had the first half inch of a sock.</p>
<p>"We can't make new witchers anymore. Not for fifty years now. The stronghold was sacked, and we lost..." Geralt shook his head a little, not wanting to go into details about either the mutagens or the casualty count. </p>
<p>Jaskier had gone very quiet, but at least wasn't making that little hurt sound in his throat. He was barely breathing, though he kept moving his brush over his skin steadily. </p>
<p>"I don't... humans don't like witchers. Some of them... know me, a little, because I buy and sell with them when I'm in the area, and once I find a good person to trade with I come back to them until they go out of business or die. Or until they take against witchers and refuse to speak to me anymore. That usually happens first."</p>
<p>Jaskier's brushing paused; Geralt made his hands keep moving steadily along the row, swapping colors with practiced motions. After a moment Jaskier started brushing again, and Geralt tried to summon the will to say more, to say it directly, but he couldn't even think of the words, let alone speak them. He thought Jaskier could put it together, but...</p>
<p>"So when you..." Jaskier trailed off; Geralt listened to him trying words out for a solid minute before he went on, resuming the brushing as well as speaking, "When you think of who your friends are, it's witchers. And if there haven't been any new witchers for fifty years, then... every friend you have, you've had since--since before my <em>mother</em> was born."</p>
<p>Geralt didn't specifically know when Jaskier's mother had been born, but he was rounding down when he said <em>fifty years</em>, so he could probably trust Jaskier with the arithmetic. </p>
<p>"Only got to know Coën... maybe twenty years ago," Geralt said. "Different school."</p>
<p>Jaskier huffed, and twisted up onto his knees, hefting the brush and giving Geralt an inquiring look. </p>
<p>Geralt nodded and set his knitting aside as he held his hand out for the brush. Jaskier came over and gave it to him before perching on the edge of the bed in front of him, his back to Geralt. Jaskier had a fair amount of hair on his back--significantly less than on his chest, but still enough to make him obviously a soft furry mammal, not like the unnaturally smooth skin of a witcher, or most of the things witchers hunted.</p>
<p>Geralt did not actually pet him, but set to work after a few seconds of silent admiration, running the brush over the nape of his neck and then the tops of his shoulders. He'd learned just the right touch for it, to make the hair lay smoothly and raise a little flush from Jaskier's skin without scratching unpleasantly.</p>
<p>"What I mean is," Jaskier said, when Geralt was down to his shoulder blades, "for you that's... that's not a word you use lightly, to mean anyone you just associate with..." Jaskier trailed off, words stopping and starting in his throat without reaching his lips, but it hadn't sounded like a question. Jaskier was still willing to work this out without Geralt saying anything. </p>
<p>Geralt kept brushing, taking his time, making every hair lie neatly in its natural line. </p>
<p>"No one else actually associates with you in an even sort of friendly way," Jaskier went on. "So it's just witchers, who you see in the winter or... or by chance, because none of you stays put anywhere or goes anywhere in a predictable fashion. And some bard who started following you around and wouldn't stop. Six years is hardly... hardly even being properly introduced, by your scale."</p>
<p>Geralt shrugged. It wasn't as if there were a particular timeline, even for those who he hadn't latched on to with childhood quickness; most of the Wolves had either always been there or grown up underfoot, and becoming friends had been more or less synonymous with both being adults. But Coën, for instance; if pressed Geralt would have allowed that Coën was a friend after maybe the second time they met up, which came two years after the first time. Geralt had met up with Jaskier a dozen or more times in the first two years after they met.</p>
<p>It just hadn't seemed like it could possibly be the same thing, because Jaskier was human. Not even <em>technically</em> human, like some alchemist or druid or hermit who lived on the borders of things, who was nearly as isolated as a witcher, and nearly as likely to be turned on if folk took it into their heads to need a scapegoat.</p>
<p>Jaskier was as human as humans could be, bright and loud and cheerful and endlessly inventing music and poetry--things no one actually needed.</p>
<p>But apparently humans didn't have the sense to just take the bard as he was--not a reliable neighbor or a future spouse, no, but perfectly... Jaskier. </p>
<p>"Eskel," Geralt said, and Jaskier twitched a little in a way that made Geralt stop brushing.</p>
<p>"Sorry," Jaskier mumbled, twisting a little to touch his fingertips lightly to Geralt's wrist, perhaps in reassurance that it hadn't been Geralt's touch he flinched from. "I shouldn't have been like that about him."</p>
<p>Geralt stared at Jaskier's fingers on his wrist for several seconds, taking that in. Evidently Jaskier had not, in fact, been polite or disinterested, all those times he mentioned Eskel. The staring hadn't been about Eskel's scars at all. </p>
<p>It had all been because Geralt had said with perfect certainty that Eskel was his friend, when Jaskier hadn't been sure that Geralt did more than tolerate him. If he'd had any idea how much Geralt and Eskel talked about him while they were all traveling together, Jaskier would have thought they were poking fun at him--the way he and Eskel used to complain about Lambert trying to tag along with them, back when he was a kid.</p>
<p>"You were fine," Geralt said as he resumed brushing, because that was easier than explaining that he'd had no idea Jaskier was being like anything at all. "I just meant--Eskel's my best friend. Training--we lived in the same room, did everything together, from when we were six years old until we went out on the Path, but after that... sometimes we go three years without seeing each other. We'll give each other shit when we see each other again, just because..."</p>
<p>Geralt swallowed and struggled for words to go on with.</p>
<p>"Because if it's been three years, you start to think he's not coming back ever?" Jaskier said, very softly. "That... that must be terrible. Not knowing. And... when you become sure about someone. That must be worse."</p>
<p>Jaskier half turned his head, so Geralt would be in his peripheral vision, but didn't press for Geralt to meet his eyes, nor did he move enough to make Geralt stop what he was doing.</p>
<p>Geralt nodded a little, and he knew Jaskier was thinking of what he'd said: they were down to maybe eight or nine now, a dozen or so at the most. How long until they lost another? Who had they already lost without knowing it? How long until there were only two left? Only one?</p>
<p>Geralt shook his head at himself and focused on the last bit of brushing, down to the tops of Jaskier's hips, though it hardly required a tenth of his attention.</p>
<p>"But it's not..." Geralt said, picking up where he'd meant to be going. "We don't blame each other. We know. We have work to do, and we do it alone. No one... I would never like anyone less, just because our paths didn't cross for a long time. When we meet each other again, we pick up where we left off. Help each other. Not in trade, this favor for that, just... because that's who we are."</p>
<p>Jaskier twisted around to look at him then, making Geralt drop his hands. His eyes were wide with something like horror, and genuine unpleasant surprise; Geralt could hear it in the beat of his heart as much as he saw it on Jaskier's face. "You... Geralt, did you think--you did, didn't you."</p>
<p>Geralt blinked at him. He actually thought he knew what Jaskier was getting at this time, but he wasn't going to say it before Jaskier did.</p>
<p>"You did," Jaskier repeated, shoulders sagging as he let his head fall, chin nearly on his chest as he turned his back fully to Geralt again. "You thought I just wanted songs. I even said that, didn't I. You'd be repaid with fame. I'd get people to pay you fairly. So it was just... doing business with one more human who didn't seem to mind you."</p>
<p>Geralt frowned through the last bit of brushing and then let his hand rest against Jaskier's hip as he tried to remember when he'd first started to think it might be anything else. It had to have been before he realized Jaskier had said <em>my friend</em>; he wouldn't have made anything of the words if it hadn't seemed applicable somehow. </p>
<p>When had Jaskier first asked him to do this? Or to rub some lotion or salve or tincture on a bit of himself he couldn't see? Not the first year or the second, but... he couldn't remember how long it had been. It was familiar, now. Easy. Geralt had even allowed him to return the favor a time or two, applying salve to cuts or bruises he couldn't easily reach.</p>
<p>"It wasn't <em>just</em>," Geralt said. "I wouldn't let some stranger follow me around everywhere. Someone who just wanted something."</p>
<p>Even at the beginning, maybe he'd been thinking of Jaskier like a witcher--a young one, the kind that there weren't, anymore, but the kind Geralt still remembered being himself. A barely-grown young man, convinced that he was independent and ready for anything, who just so happened to latch on to an older witcher for a few days anytime they met. Just to observe some techniques or learn a new formula or have a guide along some unfamiliar route, that was all. He'd never said no to any of the youngsters who attached themselves to him, in that brief window--only a decade or so--between going out on the Path himself and the end of young witchers leaving Kaer Morhen for the first time. </p>
<p>He'd missed them when they didn't turn up anymore. He'd been missing them for a very long time, when Jaskier latched on to him at Posada.</p>
<p>Since before Jaskier's mother had been born, Geralt remembered. They'd met six years ago, and that was apparently a very long time for Jaskier, long enough that he'd made and lost countless friends and lovers. Geralt dimly remembered a time when six years had seemed like a long time, not just a span that seemed to fly by whenever he took his eye off things.</p>
<p>"So," Jaskier said, breaking a silence that had gone on for some time; he was sitting quite still, back very straight. "I have studied both rhetoric and logic, and I think that, in my learned opinion, what we have established is that we are indeed friends. I could write out the proof, step by step. You're my friend and I'm yours, according to all the evidence and precedent we have reviewed."</p>
<p>"Mm," Geralt said, looking down at the little brush in his hands, rubbing a thumb over the stiff-soft bristles. "Guess we've got enough identifying characteristics to be sure what we're dealing with."</p>
<p>Jaskier let out a little yelp that dissolved into giggles; he twisted to look and Geralt gave him a very straight-faced stare that only made Jaskier laugh harder, falling sideways onto the bed and wriggling around aimlessly. Geralt couldn't help savoring the scent of him, happy and warm and vaguely turned on, safe here with his friend, the witcher. Jaskier relaxed onto his back, stretched out in front of Geralt, and Geralt felt his own body loosening a little, the prepared-to-bolt tension fading from his muscles and softening his spine. The corners of his mouth turned up, just a little.</p>
<p>He had an entire minute or two to sit and enjoy the sensation before Jaskier spotted the knitting Geralt had set aside.</p>
<p>His eyes lit up and he reached for it; Geralt snatched it away before he could touch it, and once he was holding it his hands he automatically resumed working. Jaskier curled onto his side, propping his chin on a hand as he watched, clearly fascinated.</p>
<p>"If we're friends," Jaskier said, "according to your field guide to types of humans--does that mean you'll make me a pair of brightly colored socks? Please please <em>please</em>?"</p>
<p>Geralt outright glared, even as he was considering that Jaskier's feet were near in size and shape to his own--certainly near enough that a pair of socks Geralt had never worn would conform readily to Jaskier's feet. Also, now that he considered it, the blue-green variegation of the accent yarn oscillated around something very like the Novigrad drowner's fin shade of Jaskier's current favorite suit of clothes. </p>
<p>At least he hadn't made it into buttercups as well.</p>
<p>"Don't just give 'em away to anybody," Geralt said. Jaskier's expression closed a little, and Geralt added, before they could get off track again, "We don't make socks for anybody else. We make our own, and just swap them around sometimes among each other."</p>
<p>"I could..." Jaskier said, and then frowned thoughtfully. Geralt dropped his eyes to his work, silently hoping that Jaskier wouldn't make a whole thing of it. </p>
<p>Geralt <em>could</em> perfectly well give Jaskier a pair of socks, especially if Jaskier didn't have enough or couldn't easily get more--which he couldn't, if he couldn't make his own, not without paying some absurd price to buy already-made socks. His few mentions of his family made it clear that he wasn't getting resupplied from that direction, and clearly none of his friends or bedmates looked after him that way either. Witchers didn't work without at least attempting to get paid--but a friend was different, and Geralt had done more for plenty of his fellow witchers with no direct recompense. </p>
<p>It was just... not quite how Geralt wanted that to go, between them, when he could do better.</p>
<p>"I'll show you how," Geralt decided. Someone ought to have, before they turned Jaskier loose on the world; he might know music theory and rhetoric and logic, but none of that would keep the frostbite off his toes. "You know your way around sticks and string, you'll get it. Then you can make a pair and we can trade."</p>
<p>It wouldn't be the first time Geralt had gone around in some beginner's first attempt at a pair of socks, and he could always fix them up a bit if they were really bad. He would still know that Jaskier had gotten a good pair of socks out of the exchange, but it wouldn't be like making them for a kid too little to make his own, or someone too infirm to manage. Jaskier was a capable adult, at least nominally; they ought to be on equal terms. That was what friends were, Geralt was fairly certain.</p>
<p>"Oh," Jaskier said, sounding a little too startled--almost reverent, like he was still thinking knitting was some kind of magic, like Geralt was letting him in on closely-guarded Witcher secrets by showing him how to tie yarn in the particular kind of knots that made the shape of a sock. "Yes, I--I'd like that."</p>
<p>Geralt rolled his eyes against the disproportionately warm feeling that lit in his chest. </p>
<p>Jaskier put his head down on his arm and subsided to his usual humming and mumbling, the kind that Geralt knew he was allowed to hear but was under no obligation to respond to. He was evidently in no hurry to get on with the rest of his cleaning routine. Geralt carried on knitting, trying to look at it and actually see what he was doing, in anticipation of trying to teach it.</p>
<p>Jaskier would probably want instructions he could write down; he liked things put into words. He wasn't so practiced at seeing a thing done and repeating the motions that way, though he could sing a song or recite a lyric after hearing it just once. </p>
<p>Geralt, meanwhile, wasn't entirely sure what all the proper words <em>were</em> for the different steps in the knitting process, and he had a sneaking suspicion that if old Master Herrick had used any words when he taught them, back before Jaskier's <em>grandmother</em> was born, the terms had already been old-fashioned then. The words hadn't ever been important. It was just... knitting. It wasn't like you needed to scrupulously document it for the sake of some witcher generations in the future, who might encounter it again and need to know what to do.</p>
<p>It might be just as well to find someone in town who'd taught children to knit more recently than Geralt had--so, anytime in the seventy-some years that had passed since Geralt was old enough to spend his days in lessons and sword training, instead of helping to mind the littler ones and keep them busy. Maybe there would be someone doing relatively stationary housework at one of the homes he needed to visit, and he could leave Jaskier to interrogate them about sock-making while he sorted out whatever was going on in that hill pasture. </p>
<p>Jaskier would probably like that, though, sitting with people and learning something from them, even if it wasn't a story. He'd probably turn it into a song somehow anyway. If he managed not to fuck anyone before Geralt got back, they might even be more inclined than otherwise to pay for his work. Or pay him to get Jaskier away from their workbaskets, which might amount to the same thing. </p>
<p>Geralt smiled a little in anticipation of the next day, and shifted over on the bed to press his hip against Jaskier's as he worked.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Five days and eight contracts later, Geralt was lying face down on a bed in another inn--not in a private room, this time, but at least they'd gotten an upper bunk in a quiet corner of the common room. </p>
<p>Geralt had drunk precisely enough vodka on top of the last several days' rounds of potions to feel unpleasantly toxified but not usefully closer to sleep. Jaskier, whose variety of creams and lotions had left him smelling flowery and sweet in a way that was slightly nauseating just now, had been sitting beside him for half an hour in blessed near-silence, determined to turn the heel of his sock without help.</p>
<p>"Ha!" Jaskier said, nearly a shout, making Geralt jerk half-upright in a way that made his stomach and head both slosh unpleasantly. Jaskier just beamed at him, pleased with himself and fearless, holding up what was, admittedly, an only slightly lumpy half-made sock with a more or less competently turned heel. "Geralt, look at this lovely lovely sock your very youngest and best-smelling friend is making! I'm <em>brilliant</em>."</p>
<p>Geralt could have critiqued the sock, but it would have dimmed the happy light in Jaskier's eyes; in the effort of not doing so, he instead growled, "Not my friend."</p>
<p>Jaskier froze for a second and finally looked at him properly. Geralt held still, looking back, wondering if he was going to have to assemble and then speak the words to take it back or explain. It was only the same as he would have said if Lambert or Micha or Falko had called themselves his youngest brother while annoying him--but they knew very well what they were, and that nothing he snarled at them in a temper could change that fact. </p>
<p>Before he could find the words, let alone summon the ability to speak them, Jaskier grinned again and nudged him gently to lie back down. "Of course," Jaskier said, cheerfully but a little more quietly. "Because you let just anyone share your bed to practice their knitting when you're feeling grumpy and worn out, don't you?"</p>
<p>Geralt, in the act of lying down again, opened one eye to squint at him as balefully as he could manage.</p>
<p>"Mm-hm," Jaskier said, settling back to his knitting, confident and calm, heart beating in a steady rhythm that would lull Geralt to sleep if he just managed to focus on it. "Put that in your field guide to humans. Essential characteristic of a friend, which I am. We are."</p>
<p>Geralt smiled a little where Jaskier couldn't see, and made a mental note.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29910921">Social Cues</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuwdora/pseuds/kuwdora">kuwdora</a>
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